GIFT  OF 

Marston  Campbell,  Jr 


Cf 


,      / 


* 


/ 


HALF     TINTS. 


HALF    TINTS: 


TABLE    D'HdTE 

AND 

DR  A.  WING-- ROOM. 


NEW  YORK: 
D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  443  AND  445  BROADWAY. 

1867. 


6IFTOF 


Entered  accprding  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1867,  by 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO., 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

COMMONPLACE,      .        .       ..r      .        ,        .        .        7 

n. 

COME,        .        .     ."..       ......        .        .        .          19 

HI. 
THE  UNIYEESE, 31 

IV. 
LITTLE  ONES,    .        .        ....        .        .          43 

Y. 
TABLE  D'HOTE, 55 

VI. 
DRAWING-ROOM, VI 


832765 


CONTENTS. 

m 

GENTLEMEN'S  PABLOB, 91 

vin. 

THE  EXCHANGE, 107 

IX. 
AN  INMATE,         . 121 

X. 

NOT  A  SEEMON, 133 

XI. 
HAPPINESS,    .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .149 

xn. 

POOE  BODIES,    .        .        .        .        .        .        .        igj 

xm. 

POOE  SOTJLS,         .        .  .        9  1^9 

XIV. 
AND  So  FOETH,        .        ,        .        .        .        .201 

XV. 
Our  OP  THE  WINDOW,          ...  219 


I. 

COMMONPLACE. 


HALF 


I. 

COMMONPLACE. 

JACK,  my  boy,  will  you  give  me  your  ears 
awhile  ?  I  feel  an  impulse  to  talk  a  little. 
And  don't  take  offence  at  my  familiar  way. 
Kemember  that  as  John  and  man  I've  never 
known  you. 

Do  you  never  rub  your  eyes  and  strain 
back  to  that  long  ago?  Do  your  faculties 
never  swim  in  remembrances  of  it  ?  Do  you 
never  have  periods  of  abstraction,  when  mem- 
ories become  actualities,  and  all  sense  for 
present  things  is  suspended  or  inoperative? 


i* 


10  HALF   TINTS. 

To  me  they  occur  often,  floating  me  off  my 
feet  and  out  of  myself.  No  matter  how  busy 
or  absorbing  the  situation,  the  exacting  pres- 
ent is  shut  out,  and  the  old  time  comes  back, 
warm  and'.radiknt  as  our  boyhood  painted  it. 
Only  the,  other,  morning,  hurrying  through 
he'tlioroiighfape'  ef  the  great  town,  jostled  by 
the  crowd  of  active  men  with  desperate  pur- 
poses, I  happened  mechanically  to  glance 
down  a  side  street  to  the  tidal  river,  when  I 
suddenly  became  as  unconscious  of  the  rush 
and  roar  as  if  staggering  in  a  syncope.  The 
water  seemed  actually  to  rise  and  blend  with 
the  sky,  and  the  thronging  vessels  to  be  trans- 
muted into  clouds,  transfigured,  but  retaining 
the  essential  lines  and  proportions  of  marine 
architecture.  And  the  sun  was  shaded  to 
soften  the  vision.  The  celestial  fleet,  floating 
sublimely  as  a  great  soul  at  rest,  was  freighted 
with  the  hopes  and  loves  and  ambitions  of 
my  youth,  and  chief  amongst  the  radiant 
faces  on  the  shining  decks  shone  the  lovely 
lineaments  of  one  you  remember  with  an  ardor 


COMMONPLACE.  11 

next  to  my  own.  Mary  still,  but  beatified,  as 
Beatrice  to  Dante.  And  Eliza,  her  insepara- 
ble companion,  as  you  were  mine,  stood  by 
her  side.  How  much,  Jack,  those  beautiful, 
modest,  bright  girls  were  to  us.  I  am  sure 
that  for  years  we  never  did  a  doubtful  thing 
without  a  fear  of  their  knowing  it,  and  God 
knows  how  many  ill  things  that  guardian  con- 
sciousness deterred  us  from.  Last  at  night 
and  first  in  the  morning  came  thoughts  of 
my  little  Mary,  and  pure  they  were  as  their 
subject.  And  with  something  of  awe  her 
presence  inspired  me.  "We  never  talked  of 
the  things  always  in  our  thoughts,  and  when 
happiest  we  talked  not  at  all.  That  sweet 
baptism  Motherwell  describes  as  the  silentness 
of  joy,  and  Lowell  more  at  large  in  his  apos- 
trophe : 

Oh,  sweet  Silence  !    They  belied  thee 
Who  have  called  thee  weak  and  vain ; 

Speech  is  emptiness  beside  thee, 

Joy  and  woe  have  glorified  thee ; 
Love  and  longing  never  seek 
Any  better  way  to  speak. 


12  HALF   TINTS. 

Coherency  at  such  times  was  as  impossible  as 
steadiness  to  palsy.  The  happiness  her  pres- 
ence inspired  composed  my  soul,  cushioning 
the  faculties  like  a  sweet  sleep.  The  tongue 
forgot  its  cunning.  Separating  from  her,  the 
magic  thraldom  would  only  too  sensibly  be 
felt,  as  the  waking  senses  consciously  disen- 
chant themselves  of  the  stuff  that  dreams  are 
made  of.  You  know  the  sensations  well 
enough,  repeated  over  and  over  again  in  your 
relations,  present  and  absent,  with  Eliza,  and 
repeated  to  every  man  with  a  man's  heart, 
human  enough  for  its  best  uses.  Why,  Jack, 
it  did  seem  that  I  lost  my  conceit  some- 
times, so  absorbed  I  was  with  her,  elbowing 
myself  perpetually,  without  a  thought  of  sac- 
rifice, by  never-ceasing,  ever-varying  accom- 
modations to  her  wishes  and  whims.  If  you 
do  not  remember,  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact,  that 
I  learned  to  write  her  name  before  I  could 
write  my  own.  I  never  saw  a  very  red  glis- 
tening apple,  nor  a  perfect,  blushing,  delicious 
peach,  without  growing  sinfully  covetous  of  it, 


COMMONPLACE.  13 

as  a  fitting  little  gift  to  her,  so  all-deserving. 
In  the  class  I  would  deliberately  misspell  the 
word  rather  than  go  above  her.  I  never  saw 
a  smooth  beech-tree  but  I  cut  our  initials  upon 
it,  never  omitting  to  cut  also  a  ring  round 
them,  that  another  might  not  get  in.  Never 
shall  I  forget  the  pretty  pink  bonnets  she 
always  wore  on  smiling  Sunday  mornings,  and 
the  conscious  looks  we  gave  each  other  across 
the  aisle.  You  remember,  no  doubt,  that 
pleasant  time  in  the  sugar-camp,  when  all 
four  of  us,  with  each  a  mug  of  delicious  syrup, 
went  down  to  the  brook  to  cool  it  and  drink. 
"We  were  too  earnest  for  jokes  with  or  about 
the  sweet  lasses.  And  you  have  not  forgotten 
how  in  the  still  summer  days  we  sometimes 
wandered  to  that  same  little  stream  and  waded 
in  the  pure  water,  and  how  the  timid  little 
things  ventured  out,  their  white  toes  spread- 
ing over  the  clean  pebbles  like  live  things. 
Holmes's  picture  reminds  us  : 

Maidens  dancing  on  the  grapes, 
Their  milk-white  ankles  splashed  with  red. 


14:  HALF   TINTS. 

You  are  a  ripened  man,  and  so  am  I,  but 
it  would  be  sacrilege  to  forget  these  things. 
Trifles  they  are,  no  doubt,  and  shamefacedly 
referred  to,  if  at  all,  but  inestimably  have  they 
contributed  to  us.  If  Mary  and  Eliza  are  not 
our  wives,  the  good  women  who  are  are  none 
the  worse  for  our  innocent  tenderness  to  them. 
Job,  my  bachelor  friend,  broadly  asserts  that 
he  advises  the  girls  never  to  marry  men  who 
have  not  been  in  love  a  dozen  times ;  that  it 
is  with  the  affections  as  with  the  muscles ; 
they  grow  and  strengthen  by  use.  Grotesque, 
of  course,  and  extravagant,  but  a  little  of 
truth  may  be  found  in  it  as  in  every  thing. 
My  gilded  memories  of  Mary  come  out  of  the 
past  and  help  me  to  appreciate  another  who 
is  better,  as  the  vintage  of  half  an  age  is  pref- 
erable to  the  raw  juices,  unpurified  by  long 
voyaging  upon  the  fretful  sea  and  unmellowed 
by  years  of  sanctifying  repose.  If  I  shut  my 
eyes  sometimes  and  dream  of  innocent  pleas- 
ures, as  Paul's  with  Virginia,  I  am  sure  a  new 
touch  of  tenderness  and  delicacy  unconsciously 


COMMONPLACE.  15 

attends  my  caresses  of  that  other  Mary  who 
sits  by  my  side,  her  memory,  perhaps,  idly 
summoning  up  blithe  blinks  of  some  sunny 
boy,  which  have  helped  to  make  her,  the 
Maker  of  us  all  knows  how  much,  the  good 
woman  she  is  to  me.  It  is  true  we  do  not 
speak  to  each  other  of  these  things,  but  as- 
sume them,  nevertheless.  Age,  said  Grand- 
father Titbottom,  with  a  smile  of  immortal 
youth,  is  not  a  matter  of  years,  but  of  feel- 
ing. My  wife  and  I  lately  talked  of  this  after 
reading  one  of  the  thoughtful  essays  of  John 
Foster.  In  no  way  can  we  account  for  ourselves 
so  well  as  by  a  careful  review  and  analysis  of 
the  associates  which  chance  or  affinity  have 
put  in  our  way.  So  good  and  lovable  is  rny 
wife,  that  in  robbing  her  of  one  memory  I 
should  risk  making  her  so  much  the  less  charm- 
ing and  saintly.  If  some  remembrances  force 
from  her  a  sigh,  I  would  not  make  her  obliv- 
ious of  them  any  more  than  I  would  put  out 
the  light  of  her  beaming  eyes.  In  her  integ- 
rity I  have  her  and  would  keep  her,  here  and 


16  HALF   TINTS. 

hereafter.  Think  of  a  self-righteous,  conceited 
reader,  who  would  presume  to  tear  out  inex- 
plicable or  exceptional  passages  of  the  Good 
Book  as  he  read  them. 

[Mary  the  First,  you  know,  is  now  a  widow, 
and  lives  in  one  of  your  beautiful  "Western 
cities.  The  prosperous  drover  she  married  I 
never  saw,  nor  do  I  regret  it.  My  only  im- 
pressions of  him  are  got  from  a  hideous  por- 
trait which  hangs  over  the  parlor  mantel. 
Some  years  ago  (my  wife  accounted  for  the 
delay  by  a  storm  on  the  lake)  I  travelled  out 
of  my  way  to  pay  the  widow  a  visit.  I  found 
her  plump  and  rosy  as  Hebe,  and  without  the 
aid  of  dressmaker  or  cosmetics.  The  snug 
little  sofa  we  snugly  occupied  during  the  even- 
ing was  little  roomier  than  the  modern  old 
gentleman's  easy-chair.  But  oh,  how  the  por- 
trait glared  upon  us.  I  declare  to  you,  Jack, 
I  never  behaved  so  well  in  all  my  life  as  while 
in  its  awful  presence.  The  stiff,  stick  fingers 
I  felt  tempted  to  knock  off  with  my  cane 
while  waiting  for  the  little  charmer  to  come 


COMMONPLACE.  17 

in.  Its  one  wholly  visible  ear  seemed  to  move 
and  belly  like  the  sail  of  a  sloop  to  catch  every 
syllable  of  our  interesting  talk.  The  thin  hair 
was  brushed  so  sleek,  and  had  such  a  pomatum 
gloss,  that  never  a  fly  had  dared  to  light  upon 
it.  The  eyes,  as  Thackeray  would  say,  gog- 
gled round  savage.  The  complexion  had  the 
hue  of  a  peeled  egg  a  little  browned  in  the 
roasting.  One  side  of  the  glossy  blue  coat 
hung  so  heavily  that  I  shall  believe  till  my 
dying  day  there  was  a  stiletto  in  it.  Several 
times  since  that  night  with  the  frightful  pic- 
ture and  the  cherry-lipped  relict,  I  have  seen 
in  my  dreams  the  treacherous  weapon  steal 
from  its  scabbard  of  shiny  broadcloth,  and  felt 
it  push  its  way  persistently  between  my  ribs, 
as  a  pin  pierces  a  pippin.  A  moment's  gush, 
then  gone  forever.  Oh,  if  there  be  a  legacy  a 
dying  man  can  leave  utterly  to  damn  his  mem- 
ory, it  is  a  portrait,  forever  to  embarrass  his 
widow.] 


n. 

COME. 


H. 

COME. 

JACK,  yon  are  a  philosopher,  and  have  never 
travelled.  You  have  been  contented  to  grow 
with  your  cattle  and  corn  on  your  fat  Mississippi 
acres,  while  I  have  roamed  like  a  vagrant  over 
the  world.  I  have  wished  often  we  could  see 
each  other  as  we  are,  to  compare  notes  and 
mark  progress.  Leave,  I  pray  you,  your  short- 
horns and  sorghum,  and  spend  a  fortnight  with 
me  amidst  gas,  and  tall  buildings,  and  horse- 
cars.  Leave  your  accustomed  ruts,  and  get 
into  others  as  different  as  Nantucket  from 
Chicago.  I  do  not  say  you  will  go  home  a 
wiser  or  a  better  man. 

If  you  come,  let  me  suggest  you  stay  at 


22  HALF   TINTS. 

The  Universe.  You  would  find  the  great  hotel 
a  world  within  itself.  Creature-comforts  would 
close  round  you  like  a  pillow.  Every  thing 
you  could  wish  would  be  anticipated,  or  could 
be  had  for  the  asking,  all  set  down  method- 
ically in  your  bill,  silently  slipped  under  your 
door  every  seventh-day  morning.  The  porter 
taking  your  luggage  at  the  door  will  be  civil 
and  sturdy,  and  a  greenback  will  reward  him. 
The  two  or  three  clerks  at  the  office  will  be  as 
clean  and  smiling  as  bridegrooms.  But  let  me 
suggest  thus  early  that  you  have  an  eye  to  the 
devices.  All  here  is  gold  that  glitters.  Pre- 
sent yourself  at  the  marble  counter  with  im- 
pressive and  masterly  deliberation,  with  the 
repose  of  power  and  distinction,  your  great- 
coat buttoned  carefully  to  the  chin.  Before 
ungloving  to  register  your  name,  very  quietly 
inquire  if  some  celebrity,  most  in  the  news- 
papers for  the  time  being,  has  arrived  and 
asked  after  you.  Be  sure  to  do  this  with  a 
quiet  air  verging  on  indifference ;  for  studied 
quietness  in  these  times  and  places  is  every 


COME.  23 

thing.  Your  comfort  during  your  stay  will 
very  much,  depend  on  these  apparently  trifling- 
things.  But  observe  that  the  extreme  of  quiet- 
ness may  be  as  unfortunate  as  the  unconscious 
ease  of  a  man  in  his  own  house ;  it  will  argue 
the  guest  an  over-actor,  or  timid  and  unac- 
quainted with  the  world.  The  Boots  will  de- 
tect either,  and  vote  him  a  bumpkin  or  a  boor. 
Balancing  means  and  ends  is  nice  exercise, 
and  busies- the  ingenuity  of  the  world.  People 
who  do  not  learn  the  art,  rarely  get  the  worth 
of  their  labor  or  money.  Their  best  attain- 
ments may  be  too  expensive;  to  accomplish 
little  they  may  risk  all.  A  conceit  illustrating 
it  came  into  my  head  this  morning,  and  curled 
into  rhyme  insensibly : 

'Twas  of  an  Irishman  crossing  a  field, 

With  a  scythe  swung  over  his  shoulder : 
Espying  a  snake  in  the  grass  concealed, 

And  finding  not  near  him  a  bowlder, 
Or  stick,  or  weapon  of  any  kind, 

Determined  with  snath  to  kill : 
Forgetting  the  blade  his  neck  was  behind, 

The  blow  he  aimed  with  skill : 


24:  HALF   TINTS. 

The  snake  at  once  was  killed  quite  dead, 
But  the  blade  cut  off  the  Irishman's  head. 

[You  never  rhyme  ?  Sorry  for  it.  I  thought 
every  man  fit  to  live  had  a  twist  of  the  sort  in 
him.] 

Job's  experience  is  suggestive.  Having 
been  unfortunate  in  the  treatment  he  received 
at  one  of  the  great  hotels,  he  resolved,  upon  re- 
turning to  town,  to  try  another,  varying  his  man- 
ner, and  summoning  all  his  resources  to  make 
his  presence  impressive  and  commanding.  In 
the  most  leisurely  way  he  stepped  out  of  the 
carriage,  into  the  office,  and  up  to  the  counter, 
and  registered  his  name.  The  elegant  clerk, 
taking  the  pen  from  his  hand  in  a  graceful 
way,  was  about  to  assign  him  to  1001  or  1007, 
or  some  other  interior  room  under  the  eaves, 
looking  out  upon  a  court  into  which  a  ray  of 
clean  sunshine  had  never  entered,  when  he 
suggested  in  an  indifferent  way  that  if  the 

Governor  and  General called,  he  wished 

them  shown  to  his  room.  A  scarcely  percepti- 
ble tremor  was  observed  in  the  obliging  gentle- 


COME.  25 

man's  fingers,  and  instead  of  the  four  unwritten 
skyward  figures  was  placed  opposite  his  name 
a  single  numeral,  assigning  a  large  and  richly- 
furnished  apartment  on  the  first  floor,  near  the 
grand  parlor,  and  looking  out  upon  the  green 
and  shaded  and  yet  dewy  square.  It  was  a 
morning  in  midsummer,  and  the  view  was  de- 
lightful ;  not  telescopic  and  grand  as  yours 
over  your  fat  valley,  but,  to  a  bachelor,  who 
has  always  lived  in  cities,  inspiring.  He  was 
shown  up  by  the  sagacious  clerk  in  person, 
who,  in  a  flattering  but  humble  way,  opened 
the  windows,  pushed  back  the  lace  curtains, 
and  let  in  the  fresh  and  fragrant  air  in  a  flood. 
Three  brimming  pitchers  of  ice-water  came 
one  after  another  unasked,  and  Job  declares 
that  a  king  on  his  throne  never  reposed  in 
greater  magnificence  of  feeling. 

And,  by  the  way,  he  always  adds,  after 
relating  the  circumstance,  that  later  in  the 
morning  he  went  into  the  barber's  room  of 
the  hotel  to  have  the  dust,  gathered  on  the 

road  from  the  sea,  brushed  out  of  his  whiskers, 
2 


26  HALF   TINTS. 

and  found  the  tonsorial  professor  at  an  open 
window,  in  an  easy-chair,  engaged  with  the 
summer  number  of  the  !Nbrth  American.  He 
rose  not  with  the  precipitation  usual  under 
such  circumstances  with  gentlemen  of  that  pro- 
fession, but  with  the  ease  of  opulence  and  the 
serenity  of  a  senator.  Expressing  a  wish  to 
have  his  boots  polished,  another  gentleman,  as 
illustrative  of  self-respect  as  the  hair-dresser, 
stepped  from  a  side-room,  and  protecting  him- 
self with  a  clean  toga  of  linen,  went  to  work 
at  the  leather  with  as  much  apparent  pride 
and  dignity  as  a  \jhief  justice  arranging  his 
dicta.  While  Job's  extremities  were  most  ar- 
tistically being  rubbed  up,  the  clerk  at  the 
office  who  received  him,  and  the  man  who 
supplied  one  of  the  pitchers  of  ice-water,  came 
in,  off  duty,  both  of  them,  and  the  four  en- 
gaged in  a  critical  discussion  of  an  article  in 
the  quarterly  referred  to,  by  Lowell  or  Emer- 
son, he  forgets  which.  He  learned  afterward, 
with  pride,  that  three  of  them  were  graduates 
of  universities. 


COME.  27 

The  great  establishment  is  nearly  as  won- 
derful and  noiseless  as  the  machine  it  is  named 
for.  So  nice  an  attention  is  given  to  details, 
and  so  wise  a  general  providence  extends  over 
the  whole,  that  it  would  seem  an  invisible 
grain  of  dust  in  a  gudgeon  of  the  coffee- 
grinder  in  the  lower  cellar  story  would  occa- 
sion universal  disorder.  So  perfect  the  man- 
agement that  every  wheel  and  pen  and  em- 
ploye seems  inevitably  and  fatally  absorbed 
with  a  particular  duty,  and  indifferent  to  the 
work  of  every  other.  Of  course  there  are 
exceptional  occasions  of  misfortune,  as  for  in- 
stance sometimes  on  a  stormy  Sunday  in  mid- 
winter, when  the  guests  are  all  at  home  and 
weather-bound,  a  disaster  will  happen  to  the 
heating-apparatus,  emptying  the  public  rooms 
of  the  house,  and  filling  the  grates  in  all  the 
chambers,  as  a  frost  will  sometimes  occur  in 
June,  huddling  the  poultry  in  the  barn,  and 
cutting  off  relentlessly  the  early  .cucumbers. 

I  am  too  lazy  to  write,  and  I  wish  above 
all  things  you  were  here  to  see  for  yourself. 


28  HALF   TINTS. 

Enjoy  it  you  would,  I  know,  ineffably.  Your 
quick  and  penetrating  sense  would  find  ample 
opportunity  for  employment.  Even  as  a  boy 
I  remember  you  used  to  know  what  things 
meant  and  weighed,  and  that  is  a  faculty  not 
very  apt  to  wear  out  or  dull.  Every  day  I  see 
something  I  wish  I  had  your  old  way  of  look- 
ing at  from  a  dozen  stand-points.  You  were 
always  wise  and  broad,  I  neither  nor  ever. 
Your  unerring  observation  and  mathematical 
sense  were  never  so  acute  or  severe  as  to  punc- 
ture or  wound.  If  your  fine  brain  measured 
to  a  hair  and  weighed  to  an  atom,  your  human 
heart  floated  in  the  milk  of  human  kindness. 
If  you  sometimes  uttered  in  the  freest  way  the 
most  searching  and  unpalatable  truths,  they 
came  in  tones  as  rich  and  pure  as  the  swing- 
ing oriole's.  It  is  so  easy  to  be  mean,  and  so 
hard  to  be  generous  in  our  judgments,  that  no 
wonder  reflection  makes  us  potter  about  form- 
ing them.  Human  nature  is  so  bad,  or  so  good, 
in  a  good  or  a  bad  place,  that  one  who  knows 
it  will  hesitate  about  too  fine  a  sight  upon  it. 


COME.  29 

Alas,  says  Heine,  one  ought  really  to  write 
against  no  one  in  this  world.  We  are  all  of 
us  sick  and  suffering  enough  in  this  great  laza- 
retto. Many  a  piece  of  polemical  writing 
reminded  him,  he  says,  of  a  revolting  quarrel 
in  a  little  hospital  at  Cracow,  where  he  was 
an  accidental  spectator,  and  where  it  was  ter- 
rible to  hear  the  sick  mocking  and  reviling 
each  other's  infirmities,  how  emaciated  con- 
sumptives ridiculed  those  who  were  bloated 
with  dropsy,  how  one  laughed  at  a  cancer  in 
the  nose  of  another,  and  he  again  jeered  the 
locked  jaws  and  distorted  eyes  of  his  neighbor, 
until  finally  those  who  were  mad  with  fever 
sprang  naked  from  bed,  and  tore  the  coverings 
and  sheets  from  the  maimed  bodies  around, 
and  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  revolting 
misery  and  mutilation. 

During  the  major  part  ot  a  year  or  two 
my  poor  wife  has  been  at  a  water-cure,  and 
some  twinges  of  my  old  injury  from  the  falling 
grape-vine  (you  remember  it,  you  rogue)  hav- 
ing come  back  to  me  after  an  absence  of  some 


30  HALF   TINTS. 

years,  and  inclining  to  linger,  not  letting  me 
go  out  as  often  as  I  would,  I  have  had  plenty 
of  time,  in  one  great  hotel  and  another,  to 
look  through  and  into  them  a  little.  If,  in  the 
haste  of  preparation,  the  flowing  bowl  be  not 
suited  to  your  palate,  pray  set  it  down  to  the 
absence  of  Mary  the  Second,  the  twinges  afore- 
said, or  my  intimacy  with  Job.  You  never 
use  lemon. 


THE    UNIVERSE. 


III. 

THE    UNIVERSE. 

I  SHALL  not  take  up  your  precious  time 
with  the  mere  materialities.  Rich  and  elegant 
furniture  and  upholstery  are  now  so  common 
that  a  word  to  anybody  about  them  would  be 
carrying  coals  to  Newcastle.  The  one  un- 
usual and  unfashionable  thing,  perhaps,  is  the 
strength  of  the  chairs  and  sofas.  A  stout  man, 
like  yourself,  need  give  himself  no  uneasiness 
about  going  through.  And  the  beds,  Jack, 
you  would  appreciate.  They  tempt  apostro- 
phe. The  airy  mattresses,  enveloped  every  day 
in  fresh  snowy  linen,  the  folds  as  distinct  as 
lines  of  latitude  and  longitude,  close  round  old 

and  young  bodies  alike,  snugly  and  gently  as 
2* 


34:  HALF   TINTS. 

sea-water.  They  are  indeed  respecters  of  per- 
sons. Soothing  their  touch  as  loving  nurse, 
and  all-pervading.  As  beds  for  bachelors,  no 
suspicion  can  attach  to  them,  and  for  men 
and  their  wives,  no  contest  can  occur  for  the 
disputed  middle.  So  level  my  own,  the  cham- 
bermaid is  puzzled  always  to  know  just  when 
my  wife  visits  me. 

As  I  said,  the  apparent  general  harmony 
will  so  strike  you,  thafc  the  machine  will  ap- 
pear to  run  of  itself.  But  put  an  eye  through 
its  crystal  covering,  and  you  will  be  as  forcibly 
struck  with  the  consciousness  of  every  part  in 
its  relation  to  every  other  and  the  whole.  There 
is  such  fidelity  and  responsibility  imposed  upon 
every  man  and  woman  on  the  pay-rolls,  that 
the  work  of  each  becomes  inseparable  from  the 
work  of  every  other.  The  eye  single  is  an 
eye  omniscient.  A  little  signal  strikes  every 
ear  as  the  touch  of  the  key  in  an  insignificant 
office  alarms  every  operator  on  the  line.  The 
young  man  at  the  private  door,  who  seems  so 
mechanically  to  let  persons  in,  keeping  his 


THE   UNIVERSE.  35 

place  in  a  cheap  story  with  his  thumb,  would 
astonish  you  with  his  knowledge.  So  all  the 
way  through.  The  system  of  espionage  is 
only  so  perfect  as  not  to  be  seen.  Every  move- 
ment of  every  guest  is  observed,  and  every 
habit  analyzed  and  accounted  for.  The  know- 
ing man  of  the  world  will  hardly  deliberate  a 
mischief  in  a  hotel.  What  is  not  known  is 
assumed,  or  guessed  at,  analogically.  The  sit- 
uation, doubtful  or  novel  to  the  adventuring 
guest  himself,  is  a  common  one  to  the  observa- 
tion of  the  spy,  who,  groaning  with  his  scuttle 
of  coal,  so  obsequiously  seems  to  avoid  him. 
The  purpose,  perhaps  hardly  conceived  by 
him,  has  time  and  again  developed  in  the  folly 
of  others.  Folly  of  any  sort,  especially  con- 
traband, as  you  descend  the  scale  of  men,  be- 
comes more  apprehensible.  Down  very  low 
in  the  virtues,  so  low  as  just  to  touch  the  line 
where  the  vices  begin,  the  meaner  faculties 
are  found  acutest.  The  mind's  eye  grows  con- 
ical, as  a  rat's.  Gross  appetite  and  passion  are 
known  and  read  of  all  men ;  the  brutes  that 


36  HALF   TINTS. 

perish  seem  even  to  scent  them.  Pure  prin- 
ciples and  pure  motives,  in  their  exaltation, 
are  invisible  but  in  their  effects.  Into  the 
translucent  depths  of  goodness  the  bad  eye 
never  wanders ;  but  evil  is  in  every  vision,  and 
reflects  itself  forever.  But  excuse  flashes ; 
pyrotechnics  for  boys,  refinements  for  sopho- 
mores. What  goes  up  must  come  down.  A 
plain  word  will  say  it  better.  All  men  are 
policemen  to  evil-doers,  especially  at  hotels. 
Exposure  is  nearly  inevitable.  What  the 
chambermaid  doesn't  know,  the  fireman  can 
tell  her.  If  the  modest  lady  who  arrived  with 
the  honest  gentleman,  by  the  evening  boat,  is 
not  his  cousin,  the  fact  will  be  surely  known 
at  the  office  very  early  in  the  morning. 

Incident.  Scene,  ofiice.  Time,  morning. 
Judge  Finesse,  a  pure  and  distinguished  cit- 
izen of  one  of  our  beautiful  interior  cities,  has 
been  spending  a  few  days  in  town  on  profes- 
sional business.  His  stay  at  the  great  hotel 
has  been  peculiarly  pleasant.  Run  to  death 
at  home  with  hard  work,  change  of  situation 


THE   UNIVERSE.  37 

and  associations  and  food  has  revived  his  en- 
ergies. The  night  has  been  refreshingly  cool, 
after  a  very  hot  day,  and  the  comfortable  cham- 
ber he  has  occupied,  fronting  to  the  south,  has 
received  through  its  great  windows  the  stim- 
ulating breezes.  Later  down  than  usual,  he 
has  hurried  his  breakfast  a  little  not  to  miss  a 
business  engagement.  Passing  composedly 
through  the  office,  the  accomplished  clerk, 
with  remarkable  blandness,  addresses  him: 
'  Good-morning,  good-morning,  Judge.  Hope 
you  are  well  and  comfortable.  Charming  day 
before  us.  Ah,  by  the  way,  Judge,'  grasping 
his  hand  with  regretful  tenderness,  and  drop- 
ping his  voice  to  gentle  softness,  'how  dis- 
tressing it  is  to  blunder.  Never  told  you  your 
room  was  promised  to  an  old  guest ;  time  up 
this  morning.  Oh,  excuse  me,  Judge;  the 
lady  in  ~No.  — ,  on  your  floor ;  you  know  her. 
Her  room  is  not  large  enough  for  two  by  half. 
Sorry  we  can't  accommodate  her ;  have  to 
turn  people  off  every  day.  Charming  lady ; 
carriage  ready.  Early  engagements  annoying ; 


38  HALF   TINTS. 

don't  let  me  detain  you.  In  town  again, 
give  us  a  call ;  not  always  so  crowded.  Dis- 
tressing to  blunder.'  The  Judge,  a  little 
disconcerted,  was  about  to  protest,  when  the 
amiable  clerk,  in  a  most  graceful  way,  looking 
straight  at  the  guest  the  while,  crossed  his 
lips  significantly  with  a  finger,  and,  after  a 
moment's  pause,  bade  the  abused  good  man  a 
final  good  morning.  A  line  from  "Watts  ran 
riot  through  the  Judge's  head  as  he  rode  down 
the  street:  Dangers  stand  thick  through  all 
the  ground :  and  the  same  evening,  at  the 
sea-side,  he  was  heard  to  express  new  views 
on  the  doctrine  of  special  providences. 

Hotels  used  to  be  devoted  to  the  accom- 
modation of  travellers  and  temporary  guests. 
The  best  rooms  were  reserved  for  them,  and 
pains  taken  to  please  them.  ~Now  it  is  other- 
wise. They  are  mainly  filled  by  people  who 
live  in  them,  and  who  possess  their  best  com- 
forts. For  the  good  treatment  of  persons  who 
are  only  in  the  house  for  a  few  days,  the  man- 
agers take  little  or  no  special  care.  Unless 


THE   UNIVERSE.  39 

the  temporary  guest  be  a  lion,  whose  enter- 
tainment would  advertise  the  establishment, 
or  a  spendthrift,  to  swell  the  extras,  he  is  of 
too  little  consideration  for  personal  attention. 
By  the  aid  of  devices,  he  may  avoid  a  loft 
lodging  or  a  bed  in  the  court ;  but  the  best 
accommodations  can  scarcely  be  had  for  affec- 
tion, favoritism,  or  money.  As  before  said, 
the  best  comforts  are  permanently  possessed, 
and  for  residents  the  great  establishment  is 
conducted.  The  treatment  others  receive  is 
secondary  and  incidental.  Especially  the  sys- 
tem of  fees  gives  the  former  every  advantage. 
Fees  in  top  figures  for  ostensible  charges,  and 
fees  for  every  thing,  descending  through  all 
the  gradations  of  service.  Fees  to  the  porter, 
who  fees  the  proprietor  for  his  license;  fees 
to  the  boy  who  takes  your  umbrella  and  duster 
in  the  check-room,  who  pays  a  rental ;  fees 
to  the  chambermaid,  who  modestly,  and  not 
at  all  suggestingly,  tells  you  how  mean  are 
her  wages,  the  housekeeper  dividing  the  profits 
of  her  appealing  eloquence ;  fees  to  the  fire- 


4:0  HALF   TINTS. 

man,  which  go  to  the  aforesaid  porter ;  fees  to 
the  table-waiter,  who  came  all  the  way  from 
Ireland,  who  wasn't  in  the  July  riots,  who 
never  repeated  a  word  he  overheard  at  the 
table,  who  has  a  wife  and  seven  children,  one 
of  them  very  small,  please  your  honor,  who 
gets  all  the  best  cuts,  and  never  serves  cold 
dishes,  who  always  knows  a  gentleman  by  his 
kindness  to  servants,  who  would  be  stupid  if 
he  gave  all  you  give  him  to  his  superior,  who 
pays  the  big  bonus  for  his  office  monthly ;  fees 
for  soap  and  water  in  the  wash-room  ;  fees  to 
the  self-sacrificing  genius  who  presides  over 
the  dressing-room,  whose  occupation  is  so  un- 
wholesome ;  fees  to  the  young  man  at  the 
door  of  the  dining-room,  who  tells  you  he  is 
a  detective,  who  has  saved  many  a  hat  and 
coat  to  gentlemen  who  never  gave  him  a  shil- 
ling, but  who  has  since  watched  the  same  hats 
and  coats  just  the  same  as  if  each  had  given 
him  a  guinea  ;  fees  to  the  boy  in  the  reading- 
room,  who  never  files  the  St.  Louis  papers  till 
he  sees  the  generous  St.  Louisan  come  in,  who 


THE   UNIVERSE.  4 

always  gets  the  virgin  reading ;  fees,  in  short, 
for  every  thing,  regular  and  extra,  necessary 
and  luxury,  from  office  down  to  boot-room, 
from  a  bottle  of  Widow  Cliquot  to  a  sheet  of 
indispensable  paper.  The  habitue,  who  knows 
all  the  springs,  and  which  to  touch,  most  effec- 
tually to  get  the  best  things  and  the  best  ser- 
vice, and  who  is  willing  and  able  to  pay  for 
them,  will  alwavs  of  course  command  them. 

«/ 

He  stands  in  the  position  of  regular  customer 
to  the  patronized,  and  will  get  good  attention 
when  the  few  days'  guest  will  be  nearly  neg- 
lected. The  latter  will  soon  be  out  of  the 
hous&  and  gone  forever.  The  other  will  re- 
main to  give  while  his  money  or  wind  holds 
out.  So,  neqessarily,  the  habitues  pitch  the 
tone  and  make  the  atmosphere  of  the  place ; 
and  with  outline  sketches  of  some  of  these  it  is 
my  purpose  to  amuse  you  a  little.  To  the 
many  who  are  here  from  time  to  time,  as  at  a 
railway  station,  because  they  must  be,  and  are 
absorbed  with  matters  to  them  greater  than 
meat  and  drink  and  glitter  lor  a  day  or  two, 


42  HALF   TINTS. 

what  is  here  said  may  be  as  appropriate  and 
interesting  as  to  you. 

[You  want  a  nap  ?  Very  well.  Put  aside 
your  pipe.  Poise  yourself  in  your  easy-chair. 
Oh,  the  value  of  a  good  conscience.  Never 
mind  the  falling  manuscript.  You  can  pick 
it  up  when  you  wake.  I  go  out  to  ride  with 
the  proprietor.  Livery-men  are  so  kind,  hotel- 
keepers  need  not  keep  carriages.  Strange  they 
are  so  liberal,  considering  the  trouble  they  are 
put  to  by  orders.  Orders,  orders,  orders.  In 
a  single  day  a  score  of  orders  for  plain  car- 
riages for  shopping  in  the  morning ;  a  score 
for  open  barouches  in  the  afternoon ;  a  score 
for  close  coupes  in  the  evening ;  all  from  the 
one  hotel  whose  proprietor  and  book-keepers 
and  clerks  are  dead-heads.  And  the  high 
prices  for  feed.  The  good-natured  stable-man. 
He  never  tells  his  wrongs.  Found  never  help 
who  never  would  his  wounds  impart,  Spenser 
says.] 


IV. 

LITTLE    ONES. 


IT. 

LITTLE    ONES. 

shall  I  waste  your  time  by  more  than 
alluding  to  the  many  boys  and  girls  just  com- 
ing to  manhood  and  womanhood.  Yealy  and 
irresponsible,  they  are  here  without  their  op- 
tion. Thoughtless  or  thoughtful  parents  have 
brought  them  here  and  pay  the  scores.  They 
are  innocent  and  beautiful.  Youth  is  always 
beautiful.  You  might  sigh  for  them ;  but  you 
forget  who  sighed  for  you.  We  all  must  see 
the  folly  of  it. 

Scene.  Breakfast-room.  Two  fragrant 
youths  have  just  sat  down.  One  of  them, 
the  more  pretentious,  drawls  wearily  :  '  Fash- 
ionable life  laboweous.  Will  Lent  never  come  ? 


46  HALF   TINTS. 

Monday  night  a  german  at  Mrs.  Brown's, 
Tuesday  night  a  german  at  Mrs.  Smith's,  last 
night  a  german  at  Mrs.  Obscew's.  Lattah 
vewy  laboweous.  Only  eight  couples ;  twelve 
the  happy  numbaw.'  Omelet  discussed.  Prac- 
tising on  the  servant,  the  young  man  grows 
sprightly  and  patronizing.  ( Gawge,'  he 
drawls  again,  less  wearily ;  i  do  you  know 
Miss  Peachblow?  I  saw  her  on  the  avenue 
as  I  came  in.  Rawther  pooty  at  times.'-  «i 

Scene,  an  hour  later.  Music-room.  Three 
pretty  young  girls,  and  one  not  so  young  nor 
pretty,  with  flat  curls  round  her  temples,  who 
seems  to  be  matronizmg,  announces  pleasantly : 
4  Lecture  to-night,  girls,  I  see,  by  Miss  Dick- 
inson.' '  Indeed,'  responds  one  of  the  pretty 
three,  'Miss  Wickerson.  Want  to  know. 
"Wonder  if  she  has  a  waterfall.' 

You  are  a  human  fellow,  Jack,  and  will 
be  astonished  when  I  tell  you  children  do  not 
abound  in  these  places.  An  honest  natural 
man  regards  them  as  the  best  fruits  of  mar 
riage.  "Not  to  have  them  I  know  you  would 


LITTLE   ONES. 

consider  a  calamity.  You  needn't  stop  read- 
ing to  count  on  your  fingers  your  own  posses- 
sions in  that  line.  I  know  in  a  general  way 
your  severe  ideas  of  duty,  and  have  no  doubt 
of  their  fullest  realization.  Your  old-fashioned 
conscientious  habits  extend  no  doubt  to  family 
matters  as  to  all  others.  You  know  by  heart 
that  radical  old  orthodox  sermon  of  poor  Yor- 
ick,  which  Trim  read  so  divinely  to  Uncle 
Toby,  Walter  Shandy,  and  Dr.  Slop,  while 
Obadiah  was  gone  for  the  forceps,  and*  no 
doubt  you -religiously  illustrate  in  all  your  life 
its  concise  summing  up :  Trust  that  man  in 
nothing  who  has  not  a  conscience  in  every 
thing.  But  times  have  changed,  and  ortho- 
doxy is  not  so  muscular,  nor  ethics  so  compen- 
dious. Life  is  constantly  developing  new 
uses.  A  little  while  ago  the  theories  of  Mal- 
thus  were  considered  impious  or  ridiculous. 
Not  so  now.  Their  practicability  is  so  far 
established  as  to  be  somewhat  realized.  At 
first  blush  it  would  appear  anomalous  that  a 
hundred  or  two  wives  and  husbands  should 


48  HALF   TINTS. 

-from  year  to  year  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry, 
and  bear  no  ostensible  blessings.  But  the 
world  moves,  and  progress  has  defined  respon- 
sibilities. Essentially  eclectic  and  practical, 
society  has  seized  and  adopted  the  best  rules 
of  all  the  sciences.  Political  economy  has 
been  ransacked,  and  its  best  truths  appropri- 
ated. So  much  to  do  in  this  world,  and  so 
little  time  to  do  it  in,  that  inevitably  there  ^ 
must  be  a  division  of  labor.  Classes  for  every  * 
thing,  and  individuals  for  every  class.  Many 
cooks  are  sure  to  spoil  the  broth.  To  do  any 
one  thing  well  it  must  absorb  the  life.  Your 
stupid  Torkshireman,  imported  with  your  love- 
ly Durhams,  feeds  and  curries  and  combs  with 
a  zeal  and  energy  that  your  scholarly  boy  Ben- 
jamin carries  into  his  search  for  Latin  and 
Hebrew  roots.  Nothing,  you  must  know,  is  so 
absorbing  as  fashionable  life.  Balls  and  calls 
and  parties  and  operas  and  shopping  leave 
little  time  for  any  thing  else.  Nothing  you 
can  imagine  could  be  so  embarrassing  to  a  life 
of  gayety  as  children.  If  by  any  mischance 


LITTLE   ONES.  49 

or  miscalculation  such  an  incumbrance  accrues, 
the  interest  in  the  most  brilliant  and  enchant- 
ing festivities  can  be  only  qualified  and  alloyed. 
Nurses,  most  trustworthy,  fortunately,  can  be 
obtained ;  but  the  mother,  notwithstanding, 
cannot  withdraw  her  mind  wholly  from  her 
offspring.  The  success  of  her  friend's  magnifi- 
cent entertainment  would  be  disparaged  in  pro- 
portion to  her  uneasiness  and  anxiety.  Besides, 
the  dress-maker's  patterns  are  not  adapted  to 
such  exceptions.  The  rules  of  tape  and  scissors 
are  remorseless.  Artistic  proportions  must  be 
preserved.  (Just  here  you  will  recall  Sydney 
Smith's  alliteration  of  diameter  and  derision.) 
Stays  and  devices  do  much,  but  cannot  do 
every  thing.  The  form,  paradoxically,  must  be 
fitted  to  the  mould.  Out  of  fashion  out  of  the 
world.  And  delays  would  be  dangerous.  Out 
of  sight  out  of  mind.  The  lists  of  friends 
would  be  revised,  and  a  chance  would  occur 
of  being  left  off.  So,  Jack,  you  see  how  it  is. 
Look  closely  into  the  proprieties  and  the  ab- 
surdity will  not  be  more  apparent  than  the 

8 


50  HALF   TINTS. 

necessity.  Imagine  a  mother  living  on  such 
sweets  and  spices  as  fashion  furnishes.  Her 
thin  blood  would  be  as  distasteful  to  the  hun- 
gry cherub  as  its  persistent  grasping  at  the 
diamond  ear-bobs  would  be  annoying.  No, 
no.  The  tastes  and  requirements  of  gayety 
and  maternity  are  incongruous.  Life  to  be 
effective  must  be  kept  simple.  Fashion  is  ex- 
acting, and  will  not  let  her  votaries  divide  or 
suspend  their  worship.  '  Babies,'  she  says, 
oracularly,  'are  vulgar.  They  are  trouble- 
some, and  spoil  the  shape.  My  dears,  do  bet- 
ter with  your  lives.  Keep  your  charms,  and 
display  them  not  at  home.  Encourage  the 
beautiful;  the  useful  encourages  itself.  Adorn 
and  glitter.  Tempt  flatteries  and  live  on  them. 
Sleep  till  you  cease  to  dream ;  dance  till  you 
die.'  And  they  dare  not  question  nor  demur. 
The  sweet  boy,  who  nearly  cost  his  mother's 
life,  must  be  put  away.  Her  life  is  too  pre- 
cious to  be  given  to  him  for  whom  it  was  saved. 
Once  a  day  or  once  a  week  is  as  often  as  she 
can  see  him.  She  must  not  stop  in  the  dance 


LITTLE   ONES.  51 

to  think  if  he  is  well  and  warm  and  sleeping. 
Resign  him  she  must  to  the  purchased  mercy 
of  the  stranger-woman,  and  risk  her  future 
and  his  forever. 

[Dear  lunatic  Lamb.  You  remember  his 
famous  toast,  after  having  been  plagued  all 
the  morning  by  noisy  children :  To  the  mem- 
ory of  the  much-abused  and  much-calumniated 
good  King  Herod.] 

But  poodles,  let  me  say,  are  admissible. 
They  are  thought  to  possess  the  requisite 
merits  without  any  of  the  drawbacks.  Some 
employment  must  be  had  for  the  affections, 
which  the  dear  things  appreciate  as  much  as 
infants,  without  being  so  exacting.  Down  out 
of  the  realm  of  bewildering  pleasure,  'tis  sweet 
to  hear  the  poodle's  honest  welcome.  Re- 
leased from  the  intoxicating  atmosphere  of 
music  and  beauty  and  perfumes,  .'tis  refresh- 
ing to  unlock  the  sources  of  feeling,  and  let 
the  tender  emotions  unrestrainedly  gather 
about  an  object  worthy  of  them.  Such  de- 
lightful dalliance  composes  the  thoughts  and 


52  HALF   TINTS. 

cushions  the  nerves.  The  most  desperate  can- 
not always  dance.  The  best-ribbed  body  will 
not  always  bear  the  stays.  The  eye  must 
weary  with  the  dazzling  diamonds.  The  most 
flexible  face  must  relax  or  the  empty  smile 
would  fasten.  The  lambent  tongue  must  some- 
times lay  its  length  in  stillness.  The  ear  would 
sicken  with  perpetual  flattery.  The  brain  would 
soften  without  the  sweet  pillow.  All  the  dis- 
traction and  dizziness  of  a  fashionable  career 
may  be  perfectly  soothed  away  by  an  occa- 
sional hour  of  gushing  caressing.  The  heart- 
rending sobs  of  poor  dear  King  Charles  are 
kissed  away,  and  he  forgets  his  desolation  in 
the  lonely  chamber.  He  believes  all  the  vows 
which  are  made  to  him  in  these  hours  of  par- 
oxysmal fondness.  His  voice  of  murmur  dies 
out,  and  their  hearts  go  together  like  the  clouds 
of  the  morning.  (Brainerd  testifies  that  he 
saw  two  of  them  tinged  with  the  rising  sun ; 
that  in  the  dawn  they  floated  on  and  mingled 
into  one.) 

So  doth  all  nature  illustrate  itself.      The 


LITTLE   ONES.  53 

angels,  for  relaxation,  are  said  to  leave  their 
blissful  abodes  to  whisper  their  heavenly  trifles 
into  the  ears  of  sleeping  and  smiling  innocence 
on  earth.  Byron  is  described  by  his  fellow- 
poet  as  standing  on  the  Alps  and  on  the  Ap- 
penines,  and  with  the  thunder  talking  as  friend 
to  friend,  and  in  sportive  twist  weaving  a  gar- 
land of  the  lightning's  fiery  wing ;  as  laying 
his  hand  upon  the  ocean's  mane,  and  playing 
familiar  with  his  hoary  locks ;  and  then  turn- 
ing and  with  the  grasshopper,  who  sang  his 
evening  song,  conversing. 

At  home  the  brilliant  Seraphina  can  have 
her  dear  King  Charles  always  with  her.  The 
rules  do  not  exclude  him  from  the  eating-rooms 
as  they  do  the  babies.  A  chair  is  drawn  out 
for  him,  and  the  bill  of  fare  is  searched  for 
bits  suitably  delicious  for  his  palate.  Great 
care  is  taken  with  his  diet,  as  do  all  that  they 
can  they  cannot  make  him  drink  Kissingen 
or  Yichy.  His  breath  must  be  sweet  and  fra- 
grant to  be  fit  to  mix  with  his  loving  Sera- 
phina's.  White  meat,  breast  of  the  chicken,  is 


54:  HALF   TINTS. 

found  best  suited,  in  all  climates  and  latitudes, 
to  the  stomach  of  the  delicate  animal ;  with 
sweet  cream,  of  course,  for  dessert. 

Incident.  Time,  midnight.  The  Universe 
announced  to  be  on  fire.  All  the  perfect  appa- 
ratus in  the  house  and  out  of  it  soon  operating. 
In  the  midst  of  the  excitement  and  terror,  com- 
ing down  the  stairway,  is  seen  the  affectionate 
Seraphina,  with  her  poor  helpless  King  Charles 
'pon  her  bosom.  A  little  later  comes  the 
nurse  with  the  baby ;  an  obscurity  and  almost 
a  secret  till  that  dreadful  midnight.  The  fruit, 
of  course,  of  honest  wedlock,  but  tabooed. 


V. 


TABLE    D'HOTE. 


^Y- 

I  - 

is   -  ,  f 


Y. 

TABLE    D'HOTE. 

I  SUPPOSE,  in  your  busy  life  with  head  and 
hands,  it  has  never  occurred  to  you  that  any  con- 
siderable number  of  persons  could  be  brought 
together,  especially  in  America,  whose  regular 
and  earnest  occupation  would  seem  to  be  to 
eat.  The  maxim  inculcated  in  our  boyhood, 
eat  to  live,  not  live  to  eat,  was  accepted  as  the 
summary  of  all  table  wisdom.  In  those  days 
the  early  morning  meal  was  soon  dispatched 
that  the  serious  work  of  the  day  might  be  com- 
menced. And  serious  work  it  was,  I  often 
think,  for  our  fathers,  single  handed  and  alone, 
to  attack  with  their  axes  the  unbroken  forest, 
to  make  for  themselves  homes  and  independ- 
ence. Looking  over  the  now  smiling  and  fruit- 

3* 


58  HALF   TINTS. 

ful  fields  and  orchards  and  vineyards,  the  toil 
and  heroism  which  produced  them  seem  in- 
credible. Indeed,  incredible  it  all  seems  to 
me  now ;  for,  accustomed  to  see  but  the  stunted 
shrubs  which  struggle  up  through  the  granite 
streets,  it  is  impossible  to  realize  the  grandeur 
of  the  old  trees,  with  their  great  roots  and 
branches  interlocked  in  the  black  soil  and  blue 
sky.  I  remember,  lying  on  our  backs,  how 
the  trooping  clouds  seemed  just  to  brush  their 
tops.  A  squirrel  up  there  defied  the  rifle. 
And  the  majestic  oak  we  used  reverently  to 
guess  the  age  and  height  of,  joining  hands 
with  Mary  and  Eliza  and  taking  the  old  fel- 
low in  our  arms.  His  tremendous  fall  during 
the  memorable  storm  seemed  for  a  moment  to 
still  even  the  thunder.  Such  an  old  monarch 
must  have  supplied  the  sublime  image  of  Read 
in  his  poem  on  the  death  of  Webster : 

The  great  are  falling  from  us,  one  by  one, 
As  fall  the  patriarchs  of  the  forest  trees  ; 

The  winds  shall  seek  them  vainly,  and4he  sun 
Shine  on  each  vacant  space  for  centuries. 


TABLE  D'HOTE.  59 

In  those  heroic  days,  plain  food,  in  suffi- 
cient quantity,  was  all  that  was  required.  The 
appetite  was  kept  whetted  by  labor,  and  di- 
gestion was  as  easy  and  unconscious  as  respira- 
tion. Sandwiches  of  corn-bread  and  bacon, 
with  the  fallen  tree  for  a  table,  untouched  and 
unpolished  but  by  the  winds  of  heaven,  and 
the  glittering  axe  for  a  platter,  brighter  than 
the  brightest  silver,  made  a  delicious  and  bril- 
liant dinner  for  the  pioneer,  after  six  honest 
hours  of  woodman's  gymnastics.  His  simple 
and  earnest  life  was  ever  a  song  or  a  prayer. 
The  present  was  all  thankfulness  and  the  fu- 
ture all  hope.  His  daily  enjoyments,  dearly 
and  honestly  earned,  were  twice  paid  for  and 
blessed  in  health  and  sweet  conscience  by  the 
Master  Employer.  His  title  to  the  acres  he 
opened  to  the  sun  was  directly  from  their 
Creator ;  and  the  bread  they  brought  him  was 
the  sweat  of  his  own  face.  His  future,  in 
the  steady  serenity  of  heroic  faith,  appeared 
abounding  in  only  such  promises  as  his  fidel- 
ity and  devotion  entitled  him  to  realize.  His 


60  HALF   TINTS. 

work  and  wants  were  so  simple  as  ever  to  keep 
him  close  to  the  Giver.  There  was  no  middle- 
man to  divide  his  blessings  or  qualify  his 
thanksgiving.  His  health  the  Helper,  and  his 
will  the  Assurance,  his  own  short  arm  was 
long  enough  to  reach  the  Bountiful  and  Ever- 
lasting. 

But  here,  where  reluctant  exercise,  and  lit- 
tle of  that,  is  substituted  for  inspiring  labor, 
the  appetite  is  dull  and  weary,  and  genius 
must  be  called  in  to  assist  it.  The  old  maxim 
being  reversed,  and  one  of  the  essential  means 
of  life  made  to  become  its  one  engrossing  end, 
nature,  in  her  simple  ways,  is  superseded,  and 
art,  with  her  endless  arts,  substituted.  Like  a 
lie,  once  told,  forever  and  everywhere  challen- 
ging the  truth  to  combat  it,  this  violence  to 
nature  must  entail  its  consequences.  From 
daylight  till  midnight  the  table  is  always 
spread,  and  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  the 
bottom  of  the  sea  are  hunted  to  keep  it  sup- 
plied. The  cook,  once  self-taught  and  ready- 
made,  has  become  a  professor  and  a  philoso- 


TABLE  D'HOTE.  61 

pher.  His  libraries  exhaust  the  sciences,  and 
his  genius  pervades  latitudes  and  elements. 
The  names  and  constituency  of  his  dishes  are 
set  down  in  encyclopaedias.  (Jerrold's  Hermit 
of  Bellyful  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  or  cari- 
cature.) So  many  and  novel  his  inventions 
that  only  the  resources  of  arithmetic  and  the 
study  of  new  languages  would  enable  you  to 
count  and  pronounce  them.  To  France  the 
world  is  indebted  for  most  of  this  kitchen  wis- 
dom, as  well  as  for  most  of  the  refinements  in 
vice  and  philosophy,  and  her  language  adheres 
to  it  as  tenaciously  as  it  does  to  them.  If  we 
accept  her  definitions  of  morals,  and  submit  to 
her  guidance  in  matters  which  reach  beyond 
this  life,  we  ought  not  to  hesitate  about  adopt- 
ing the  names  she  has  given  to  her  culinary 
inventions.  France,  you  know,  is  the  stand- 
ard of  civilization,  and  you  run  a  great  risk  of 
being  considered  vulgar  if  you  do  not  know 
her  language.  The  English,  in  America,  is  a 
very  common  language,  and  is  mostly  used 
by  common  people  and  natives.  It  answers 


62  HALF   TINTS. 

well  enough  for  ordinary  uses,  but  must  be 
abandoned  as  advancement  is  made  in  social 
standing.  For  prosperous  people,  even,  who 
have  yet  the  scent  of  labor  about  them,  it  may 
answer ;  but  when  their  probation  of  obeisance 
and  disinfection  is  ended ;  when  their  new 
birth  of  elegance  and  aristocracy  is  forgiven, 
and  they  are  fully  admitted  into  the  charmed 
circle,  they  are  presumed  to  have  forgotten 
the  vulgar  vernacular  which  sold  their  soap 
and  their  poisons,  their  stocks  and  their  lies, 
and  to  have  adopted  the  chosen  language  of 
courts  and  civilization.  So  be  very  careful  at 
table  to  give  the  French  names  to  the  dishes 
you  ask  for.  The  flunkeys  and  fine  ladies  and 
fine  gentlemen  will  not  laugh  at  you,  nor  for  a 
moment  suspect  you  are  a  useful  man. 

In  the  eating  department,  Jack,  you  will 
be  amused  at  the  ambition  which  prevails  to 
be  late  at  breakfast.  The  man  who  leaves  his 
bed  early  is  suspected  of  earnest  purposes. 
You  will  find  the  best  people,  whose  excel- 
lence is  determined  by  their  having  nothing 


TABLE  D'HOTE.  63 

to  do,  are  late  risers.  By  the  time  the  ma- 
jority of  the  world  have  earned  their  dinners, 
the  grandees  carelessly  lounge  into  the  break- 
fast-room, and  the  respectable  hour  of  meeting 
each  other  is  there  and  thereafter  a  matter  of 
pride  and  congratulation. 

But  dinner  is  the  event  of  the  day,  and  the 
achievement  of  life.  It  is  anticipated  as  a 
fete,  dressed  for  as  an  entertainment,  lingered 
over  as  a  luxury,  and  discussed  as  the  thing 
of  life  to  live  for.  Eyes  beam,  diamonds  glit- 
ter, laces  flutter,  till  you  would  think  all  the 
ladies  maidens  just  married,  and  all  the  men 
Apollos  and  bridegrooms.  If  their  lips  speak 
wisdom  it  will  be  of  the  banquet  and  its  par- 
takers. The  meats  and  vegetables  are  so  artis- 
tically ripened  that  mastication  is  easy  and 
digestion  half  accomplished,  and  ample  time 
and  opportunity  are  given  to  discuss  the  guests 
as  well  as  the  dishes.  To  know  just  how  many 
ingredients  make  up  the  soup,  just  how  long 
since  the  halibut  was  captured,  just  how  many 
days  the  beef  has  lain  on  the  ice,  just  the  time 


64  HALF   TINTS. 

since  the  pheasant  was  winged  in  your  prairie, 
is  not  information  at  all  inconsonant  with  con- 
jectures as  to  the  genuineness  of  the  diamonds 
and  laces  of  the  lady  opposite,  as  to  the  gains 
and  losses  in  stocks  of  Mr.  Breezy,  at  the  other 
end  of  the  table,  as  to  the  probable  result  of 
the  flirtation  between  Miss  Rosy  and  the  bril- 
liant Colonel,  or  as  to  the  chances  of  the  too 
conscious  lady  in  pink  at  the  left  of  the  gen- 
tleman with  side-whiskers  being  his  bride  or 
his  sweetheart,  or  his  wife  or  another's. 

The  stout  gentleman  in  a  low  waistcoat, 
mixing  his  salad  so  abstractedly  and  artistically, 
would  be  a  study  for  you.  His  obedient  and 
handy  servant  is  kept  busy  supplying  materials. 
.The  lettuce,  by  the  good  diner,  is  carefully 
culled  and  examined,  to  see  that  no  disgusting 
bug  is  hidden  away  between  the  suspicious 
leaves.  The  eggs  are  boiled  to  the  happy  hard- 
ness. The  caster  is  exhausted  for  condiments 
and  appetizers,  and  still  the  poor  servant  is 
kept  busy  supplying  the  artist's  wants.  All 
the  while  the  good  lord  of  the  stomach  is 


TABLE  D'HOTE.  65 

patient  and  absorbed  and  occupied.  The  sweet 
napkins  are  flaked  about  him  and  upon  him, 
under  his  chin,  over  his  knees,  on  his  left,  on 
his  right,  before  his  eyes.  His  calmness  is  the 
serenity  of  an  astronomer  looking  up  a  new 
planet.  The  requisite  salt  to  the  infinitesimal 
of  a  grain  is  meted  out,  the  red  and  black 
pepper  mathematically  proportioned,  the  acid 
and  oil  measured  to  a  drop,  and  the  whole  is 
chopped  up  and  sugared  till  the  result  in  the 
dish  looks  so  perfectly  mixed  as  if  indeed  there 
had  once  been  employed  upon  it  all  the  chem- 
istry of  nature. 

And  the  little  woman  with  the  blue  face 
and  twisted  nose  and  big  diamond  would  inter- 
est you  as  much.  To  see  her  go  through  the 
bill  of  fare  you  would  think  she  had  just 
escaped  with  her  life  from  a  respectable  board- 
ing-house. Double  portions  of  every  thing, 
and  rapidly  disappearing.  She  is  a  mystery 
and  a  wonder.  My  poor  wife,  invalid  that 
she  is,  with  little  interest  in  this  fading  world, 
has  watched  her  with  absorbing  interest,  and 


66  HALF   TINTS. 

finds  in  her  gastronomic  enthusiasm  and 
achievements  an  incentive  to  live  to  know  the 
result  of  her  prodigious  industry.  Go  when 
you  will  into  the  spacious  saloons  devoted  to 
eating,  you  will  always  find  her.  Early  and 
late  and  all  the  time  at  breakfast,  sitting 
through  the  whole  hour  devoted  to  luncheon, 
at  the  plebeian's  early  dinner,  at  the  later  state 
banquet,  at  tea,  silently  and  insatiably,  and  at 
supper  at  midnight,  with  raw  oysters,  cold 
chicken,  a  pitcher  of  milk,  and  olives,  just  for 
a  nightcap,  as  she  facetiously  and  felicitously 
calls  them,  at  the  same  time  bearing  a  hungry 
eye  on  the  smoking  stew  of  a  passenger  by  the 
midnight  train. 

And  you  would  be  not  less  interested  in 
observing  the  select  gentlemen  wrho  always 
occupy  the  table  directly  in  range  of  the  main 
entrance.  Their  leisurely  indifference  and 
repose  are  not  less  remarkable  than  their 
practised  habits  of  .observation.  Possibly  one 
of  them,  with  the  buttoned  coat,  younger  than 
the  rest,  may  have  blushed  sometime  within  a 


TABLE  D'HOTE.  67 

decade,  as  his  eye  lias  an  adventuring  hesitancy 
denoting  occasional  introspection.  His  look  is 
not  quite  a  stare,  and  his  eye  seems  of  shorter 
range  than  the  rifled  brasses  about  him.  His 
glances,  compared  with  theirs,  have  a  random 
unsteadiness,  as  occasional  shots  which  precede 
or  follow  a  volley.  But  he  seems  ashamed  of 
his  little  remnant  of  modesty,  and  no  doubt  in 
time  will  achieve  the  envied  effrontery.  When 
he  forgets  that  his  mother  was  a  woman,  and 
once  was  married,  he  will  as  indecently  discuss 
a  bride  as  any  of  his  accomplished  compan- 
ions. His  eye  in  company  with  theirs  will 
follow  and  fasten  upon  her  with  an  eagerness 
and  a  tenacity  in  proportion  to  the  pain  of  her 
embarrassment.  And  if  looks  fall  short  of 
perfectly  torturing  the  shrinking  innocent,  his 
pitiless  words  will  audibly  accompany  theirs 
to  complete  her  misery.  Poor  hesitating  con- 
sciousness ;  how  it  staggers  and  falls  back  be- 
fore this  faculty  of  gossips.  They  know  every 
poor  woman's  coat  of  mail,  and  strike  hardest 
where  she  is  most  unprotected  and  sensitive. 


68  HALF   TINTS. 

But  heartily  they  love  a  shining  mark  of  art- 
lessness  for  skilful  practice.  The  veterans  of 
watering-places  and  public  amusements,  who 
have  withstood  the  searching  gaze  of  elegant 
idlers  and  roues  for  untold  seasons,  they  know 
to  be  iron-clad  and  impenetrable.  They  pre- 
fer not  to  dull  their  daggers  upon  callousness, 
but  to  keep  them  bright  and  whetted  for  such 
as  are  yet  a  little  tender.  The  shrinking  gives 
a  relish,  and  pure  blood  is  fragrant.  My  wife, 
Jack,  is  the  most  amiable  woman  in  the  world, 
but  she  will  sometimes  lose  her  temper  with 
these  philosophers.  While  they  sit  as  easily  as 
in  a  restaurant,  with  their  bottles  of  wine  osten- 
tatiously ranged  before  them,  surveying  com- 
placently the  dining-room  to  find  some  new 
object  for  discussion,  her  tongue,  in  spite  of 
her,  will  sometimes  quicken  into  eloquent  in- 
dignation. If  I  would  naturally  smile  at  their 
sublime  conceit,  the  energy  of  my  wife's  de- 
nunciation still  more  excites  my  admiration; 
and  for  this  splendid  reminder  of  her  old 
brilliancy,  I  am  quite  willing  to  forgive  them. 


TABLE  D'HOTE.  69 

May  they  sit  while  they  live,  as  they  have  sat 
since  The  Universe  opened,  at  the  same  well- 
served  and  conspicuous  table,  and  may  they 
never  have  wives  to  blush  for  their  immodesty 
and  uncharitableness. 


VI. 

DEAWING-ROOM. 


YI. 

DRAWING-ROOM. 

THAT  last  glass  of  Burgundy,  Jack,  went 
right  to  the  spot,  and  the  cordial  and  coffee 
fastened  it.  The  spinal  column  is  stiffened 
prodigiously,  and  the  twinge  has  departed. 
My  dear  boy,  let  us  be  in  fashion,  and  saunter 
through  the  halls  and  lounge  in  the  parlors  a 
while,  just  to  assist  the  generous  dinner.  And 
Job  will  accompany  us.  How  brilliant  every 
thing  is.  And  the  ladies,  how  radiant  and 
charming.  Many  of  the  most  beautiful,  and 
all  of  the  most  desperate  of  the  guests  are  to 
be  met  with  at  this  hour.  Some  gay  fellows, 
who  live  mysteriously,  who  dress  showily,  who 
"know  the  town  and  everybody,  who  talk 

4 


74  HALF   TUTTS. 

stocks  and  horses  and  sonnets  and  French,  who 
are  not  guests,  but  who  seem  perfectly  at 
home,  are  to  be  met  with  also.  Of  course,  in 
such  a  brilliant  assemblage,  you  will  find  a 
sprinkling  of  widows.  They  seek  these  gay 
scenes  to  forget  their  sorrows  and  temper  their 
woes.  Your  kindly  observant  eye  will  detect 
them  by  the  shadows  which  linger  upon  them, 
and  by  the  touching  sadness  which  restrains 
their  smiles  and  mellows  their  voices.  "Widow- 
hood is  so  interesting  that  I  once  told  my  wife 
that  I  could  think  of  but  one  woman  in  the 
world  who  would  not  be  rendered  more  attrac- 
tive by  it ;  at  which  remark  she  smiled  so 
sweetly  as  to  incline  me  to  question  even  the 
one  exception ;  but  observing  that  the  little  suf- 
ering  darling  seemed  for  the  moment  endued 
with  new  hopes  of  health  and  life,  I  upbraided 
myself  for  entertaining  the  impious  shadow  of 
a  doubt,  and  determined  repentantly  to  put  it 
away  forever.  If  they  sometimes  appear  a 
trifle  too  gay,  it  must  be  accounted  for  by  the 
general  pressure  of  their  afflictions.  The  human 


DKAWINGHROOM.  75 

heart  is  happily  so  constituted  that  every 
weight  will  not  always  keep  it  down.  It 
has  an  affinity  for  zephyrs  and  sunshine,  and 
will  sometimes  float  up  to  the  rippling  surface. 
The  same  machinery  which  crushes  out  tears 
of  bitterness,  distils  delicious  nectar.  You 
know  how  Burns  puts  it : 

Chords  which  vibrate  sweetest  pleasure, 
Thrill  the  deepest  notes  of  woe. 

It  were  a  wonder  if  Job,  considering  his 
desolate  life  of  celibacy,  had  not  some  spice 
of  asceticism ;  but  no  human  being  ever  heard 
him  whisper  a  disparaging  word  of  the  sor- 
rowing widows.  If  any  one  class  of  men  more 
than  another  be  attracted  by  them,  it  is  that 
unfortunate  one  which  has  always  suffered  for 
the  want  of  that  sweet  use  of  the  emotions 
which  widowhood  mourns.  They  are  mutually 
attracted  and  mutually  sympathize.  They  meet 
upon  common  ground,  and  naturally  mingle 
their  woes.  In  the  solace  of  companionship 
are  compounded  all  losses  and  alLwants.  The 


76  TTATVF    TINTS. 

saddest  memories  are  dissipated  by  coveted 
substitution,  and  the  long-suffering  hopes  are 
sublimed  in  fruition.  If  the  satirical  world 
sometimes  laughs  at  the  companionship,  the 
spirits  of  just  men  and  lost  sweethearts  rejoice 
over  it.  If  there  be  one  transcendent  cause 
of  ecstasy  to  departed  husbands  revisiting  these 
earthly  shades  of  trial  and  affliction,  or  one 
enduring,  unexpressed  desire  of  happy  wives 
to  make  them  wish  to  linger  in  them,  it  may 
be  found  in  the  final  happiness  of  mourning 
consorts  and  sighing  lovers.  Goldsmith,  of  all 
the  poets,  is  Job's  admiration ;  but  he  never 
praises  the  Traveller  or  the  Deserted  Tillage 
without  a  qualifying  allusion  to  an  ill-natured 
passage  in  the  Citizen  of  the  "World.  That 
stain  upon  the  fair  fame  of  the  immortal 
Goldy  will  too  readily  occur  to  you ;  and  you 
have  no  doubt  wished  a  thousand  times  you 
could  blot  it  out.  A  poor  widow  had,  in  a 
moment  of  paroxysmal  grief,  declared  she 
would  never  marry  till  the  earth  was  dry 
over  her  husband's  grave.  A  sober  second 


DRAWING-ROOM.  77 

thought  naturally  soon  occurring  to  her,  the 
poet  describes  her  at  the  fresh  mound,  with  a 
great  fan  in  each  hand,  heroically  summoning 
all  the  breezes  to  hasten  her  happiness. 

Some  of  these  unfortunates  are  reported 
fabulously  rich,  which  does  not  seem  to  dis- 
courage attentions.  Even  the  mysterious  gen- 
tlemen referred  to,  who  kindly  contribute  their 
presence  and  charms  at  this  hour,  seem  rather 
to  seek  than  to  avoid  them.  As  a  class  they 
unselfishly  go  about  doing  good,  and  humanely 
take  a  hand  in  lifting,  wherever  found,  the 
superincumbent  burdens  of  humanity.  It 
would  warm  your  heart  to  see  with  what  dis- 
interestedness they  turn  from  other  and  more 
grateful  services  to  smile  away  the  shadows 
which  linger  upon  these  desolate  ones.  Them- 
selves cheerful  and  happy,  and  perfectly  free 
from  material  burdens,  they  naturally  seek  to 
illumine  the  dark  passages  of  those  who  are 
oppressed  and  despairing.  The  distresses  of 
widowhood,  with  the  cares  of  wealth  super- 
added,  have  the  need  of  the  sweet  sympathies 


HALF   TINTS. 

which  places  of  this  sort  so  conveniently  sup- 
ply. Notwithstanding,  the  sorrowing  creatures 
seem  reluctant  to  yield  their  tenacious  fidelity 
to  cherished  memories  and  investments,  since 
all  the  efforts  of  importunate  and  sympathizing 
suitors  fail  to  entangle  them  into  new  alliances. 
They  linger  from  year  to  year  in  these  haunts 
of  pleasure,  and  hear  continually  the  gushing 
vows  of  devotion,  and  still  remain  obstinately 
wedded  to  their  desolation  and  cares. 

The  graceful  creature  just  now  acknowl- 
edging the  reluctant  compliment  of  the  gen- 
tleman with  eye-glasses,  has  made  for  years  the 
tour  of  the  watering-places,  and  has  the  same 
touching  serenity  of  inconsolableness  which 
she  displayed  so  meekly  when  I  saw  her  at 
Newport  the  summer  my  wife  and  I  made  our 
first  visit.  She  passes  yet  for  twenty-five,  so 
gently  has  time  dealt  with  her  graces  of  person 
and  character.  How  many  tempting  offers  of 
affection  and  protection  she  must  have  declined 
in  that  time.  Many  a  noble  man,  no  doubt, 
has  generously  proposed  to  employ  all  her 


DRAWING-KOOM.  79 

wasting  wealth  of  affection  and  resources. 
Still  she  has  refused  to  be  comforted  and  re- 
lieved. So  morbid  her  emotions  have  become, 
that-  the  temptations  of  love  and  assurances  of 
good  guardianship  cannot  seduce  her.  And 
so  selfish  and  narrow  have  her  griefs  and  cares 
made  her,  that  she  cannot  see  that  in  declining 
an  offer  of  love  and  sacrifice,  she  has  lost  an 
opportunity  of  making  at  least  one  human 
being  happy  and  independent. 

Yery  awkward  meetings  occur  sometimes 
in  these  scenes  of  promiscuous  gayety.  Job 
tells  of  one  peculiarly  so.  Passing  through 
the  brilliant  throng  one  evening,  he  felt  a  gen- 
tle touch  on  the  arm,  and  turning  round,  dis- 
covered his  attention  was  arrested  by  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  and  attractive  of  the  guests, 
for  some  years  a  wife,  who  begged  softly  to 
know  if  he  knew  the  gentleman  who  was  just 
taking  leave  of  his  friend  a  few  yards  off. 
Answering  that  he  did  not,  the  faithful  spouse 
was  kind  enough  to  tell  him  why  she  had 
asked.  She  said,  with  a  smile  of  satisfaction 


80  HALF   TINTS. 

which  she  seemed  unwilling  to  suppress,  that 
she  had  met  the  gentleman  two  or  three  times 
in  the  street,  and  that  his  eyes  had  followed 
her  round  the  corner  in  a  way  to  denote  a 
question  whether  his  feet  might  not  follow  her 
also.  The  humor  of  the  thing  was  her  excuse 
for  troubling  him  with  the  inquiry  and  the 
reason  for  making  it.  Her  being  misunder- 
stood was  such  an  amusing  achievement  that 
she  would  like  to  know  the  sagacious  fellow, 
that  was  all. 

The  contrasts  everywhere  apparent  would 
interest  you.  Extremes  jostle  each  other  per- 
petually. An  honest  young  couple,  just  mar- 
ried, engrossed  with  themselves  and  the  sweet 
relation  they  have  just  entered,  will  be  di- 
rectly followed  in  the  promenade  by  a  man 
and  a  woman,  who,  if  they  have  known  mar- 
riage, have  only  known  it  to  degrade  and  dis- 
grace it.  The  manly  clean-minded  bridegroom 
and  the  maidenly  angelic  bride  are  a  study 
and  a  joke  to  those  who  have  survived  if  they 
ever  felt  the  consummate  bliss  of  love  and 


DRAWING-ROOM.  81 

purity  united.  The  hymeneal  hopes  and  long- 
ings of  the  ardent  and  trusting  couple  are  one 
by  one  guessed  up  and  gibed  at  as  perishing 
materialities.  The  nuptial  enjoyments,  so 
sacred  to  delicacy  and  darkness  that  a  taper 
even  would  not  shine  upon  them,  are  invaded 
and  glared  upon  by  these  satyrs.  The  dreams 
which  vault  over  to-day  and  its  trivialities 
into  to-morrow  of  benedictions  and  grandeur, 
are  exhausted  of  the  spirit  of  poesy  and 
prayer,  and  dwarfed  to  the  measure  of  disap- 
pointment and  infidelity.  The  sanctified  pas- 
sion which  so  confidingly  and  trustingly  links 
them  together,  and  so  perfectly  attunes  their 
aspirations  and  raptures,  is  disgustingly  per- 
verted, and  made  to  bear  the  sins  of  men  and 
of  animals.  The  glitter  and  array  which  to 
the  tender  lovers  seem  an  atmosphere  of  sub- 
limation, have  but  sharpened  the  human  sense 
of  the  scoffing  realists  to  anatomic  accuracy. 
The  glowing  mountains  of  promise,  wrapped  in 
rainbows  and  reaching  to  heaven  are  speculated 
upon  as  the  delusive  mirage  of  inspiring  lust. 

4* 


82  HALF   TINTS. 

But  there.  How  beautiful  that  other 
contrast.  Admire  it  as  you  would  a  rain- 
bow, with  the  glow  which  a  hearty  kinship 
with  all  the  world  kindles.  Those  two  lovely 
girls  floating  by.  Each  perfectly  beautiful, 
and  perfectly  contrasting.  Noiseless  as  spring 
sunshine,  and  as  inspiring.  They  fill  the 
eye  and  the  mind's  eye,  and  you  only  gaze. 
You  are  as  much  lost  in  the  vision  as  poet 
in  his  dream  or  saint  in  his  prayer.  A  per- 
fect blonde  and  a  perfect  brunette,  distinct, 
together,  and  blending.  Haven  hair  and 
golden,  rippling  at  random  and  flowing  to- 
gether. Blue  eyes  and  black,  as  you  look  at 
them,  alternating,  and  confusing  your  fancies, 
like  the  changing  hues  of  a  sunset.  They 
fascinate  and  subdue  you,  whatever  your  own 
eyes  or  nature.  Complexions,  nut-brown  and 
alabaster,  warm  and  roseate  with  innocency 
and  ripeness.  Figures  so  perfectly  matched 
in  size,  style,  and  movement,  as  to  appear 
inseparable.  Both  of  them  adorned  in  har- 
mony with  nature.  Colors  and  fabrics  not  less 


DKAWINGKROOM.  83 

adapted  to  unity  than  to  contrast.  What 
nature  and  art  needed  to  make  each  of  them 
perfect  is  gained  by  putting  them  together. 
If  any  thing  so  beautiful  under  the  sun,  cer- 
tainly nothing  so  ravishing  under  the  gas-light. 
Blessed  accidents  which  bring  them  together 
so  often  at  this  hour.  Happy  miracles  which 
set  them  down  so  often  upon  the  public  prom- 
enade together. 

ISTot  much  less  beautiful  the  good  woman 
of  threescore  who  is  now  talking  with  them. 
Her  complexion  is  as  clear  and  her  face  almost 
as  sunny  as  theirs.  That  glistening  silver  lock 
must  but  a  moment  since  have  turned  gray 
while  she  unconsciously  twisted  it.  Her  voice 
and  smile  and  eyes  do  not  answer  to  so  much 
of  life  and  vicissitude.  The  three  sympathize 
and  mingle  without  shock  or  discordance. 

Now  let  us  especially  observe  the  group  of 
middle-aged  women  comfortably  and  compos- 
edly seated  in  the  left-hand  corner.  They  are 
as  complacent  as  if  no  trouble  ever  came  to 
any  one  in  this  world,  and  as  assured  as  if  all 


84:  HALF   TINTS. 

the  world  must  come  to  them  for  counsel. 
They  are  perfect  types  of  their  class.  They 
have  lived  so  long  in  public  places,  and  so 
long  devoted  themselves  to  externals,  that  they 
have  ceased  to  be  attentive  to  their  own 
thoughts  and  lives.  Living  wholly  by  their 
senses,  the  power  of  reflection  is  lost  by  dis- 
use. Their  instinctive  habit  of  scenting  the 
motives  of  others  has  left  them  no  time  to 
consider  their  own.  Always  in  a  crowd  and 
always  exposed,  they  have  grown  sharp  as  the 
younger  "Weller  in  the  school  of  London  streets. 
Accustomed  to  colors  in  all  their  tints  and 
combinations,  they  criticise  even  the  summer 
clouds.  "Without  domestic  occupations  and 
cares,  their  only  resource  is  to  watch  the  vary- 
ing surface  of  life  about  them.  Good  natural 
eyes  often  seem  able  to  turn  round  corners, 
but  theirs  make  the  circuit  of  square  ones 
unerringly  and  without  difficulty.  The  slight- 
est suggestion  will  let  loose  their  whole  pack 
of  senses  in  pursuit.  To  them  every  act  has 
its  correspondent,  as  the  freaks  of  the  winds 


DRAWING-ROOM.  85 

tell  themselves  in  the  roar  of  the  chimney. 
The  only  use  of  life  which  their  careless  lives 
of  idleness  have  permitted  them  to  know  is 
amusement.  A  life  of  usefulness,  if  they  could 
apprehend  it,  would  appear  to  them  a  paradox. 
A  life  of  consecration  to  duties  so  serious  and 
absorbing  as  to  employ  every  energy  and  emo- 
tion, and  leave  no  time  for  such  trifling  as  they 
live  for,  would  seem  a  dreamer's  fiction.  The 
illustrious  Howard,  who  visited  Rome  '  under 
such  a  despotic  consciousness  of  duty  as  to  re- 
fuse himself  time  for  surveying  the  magnifi- 
cence of  its  ruins,'  must  be  to  them  as  much  a 
myth  as  Jupiter. 

Only  occasionally  are  found  in  combination 
the  qualities  and  faculties  suited  to  this  kind 
of  life.  The  majority  of  women  would  be  as 
unhappy  in  it  as  in  a  toy-factory.  To  them  it 
would  be  empty  and  wearisome,  as  they  could 
find  no  employment  for  their  better  virtues. 
The  polished  surfaces  dazzle  the  eye  but  do 
not  warm  the  heart.  If  they  do  not  weary 
they  fascinate,  and  fascination  never  brought 


86  HALF   TINTS. 

a  tear.  Its  expression  is  the  glitter  of  an  icy 
summit.  An  analysis  of  a  character  satisfied 
and  delighted  with  such  a  life  would  be  inter- 
esting and  instructive.  The  faculties  and  ac- 
quirements which  express  themselves  in  perfect 
taste  are  all  there,  but  the  fine  sensibilities  and 
affections  which  are  perpetually  reaching,  as 
the  tentacles  of  the  coral,  and  yearning  to 
apprehend  or  convert  the  wasting  or  per- 
verted attributes  of  human  nature,  would  be 
found  wanting.  The  flower  which  is  most 
effective  for  adornment  is  of  another  soil  and 
culture  than  that  which  discovers  itself  by  its 
fragrance. 

The  group  is  just  now  excited  unusually. 
A  rare  scene  for  its  eyes  and  tongue  is  before 
it.  You  might  see  these  women  often  with- 
out observing  so  much  interest  in  their  faces. 
Their  ordinary  expression  is  indifference.  Gam- 
blers and  the  bad  of  their  own  sex  only  have 
it  more  uniformly  and  perfectly.  But  their 
studied  lineaments  seem  now  to  forget  their 
training.  The  paroxysm  has  exposed  new  lines 


DRAWING-KOOM.  87 

and  wrinkles,  as  a  thaw  makes  visible  every 
treacherous  crack  in  the  frozen  surface.  They 
are  discussing  a  mother  and  daughter  from  the 
interior  of  the  State,  on  their  way  to  the  front 
to  nurse  a  brave  son  and  brother,  wounded  in 
one  of  the  bloody  battles  of  the  ^Rebellion. 
The  stricken  ones  are  attired  in  such  plain 
garments  as  their  home  supplied,  but  which 
so  outrage  the  laws  of  harmony  in  colors,  as 
to  make  them  a  spectacle  to  these  artists.  The 
countrywomen,  as  they  are  called,  are  scanned 
from  head  to  foot,  and  every  article  of  dress  is 
the  subject  of  a  brilliant  joke.  The  observers 
imagine  the  Paris  milliners  laughing  them- 
selves sick  at  such  funny  bonnets.  They  re- 
member to  have  seen  just  such  shoes  when 
they  were  children,  said  to  have  been  worn  by 
their  grandmothers.  The  tucks  set  them  won- 
dering how  many  persons  may  have  worn  the 
queer  old-fashioned  dresses,  and  to  how  many 
more,  painstaking  housewifery  may  yet  adapt 
them  before  they  reach  the  rag-bag.  And 
their  waists  are  natural,  suggesting  an  utter 


88  HALF   TINTS, 

ignorance  of  all  the  ingenious  machinery  of 
the  shops.  They  wonder  what  '  such  people ' 
can  find  to  do,  without  the  labor  and  anxiety 
of  dressing.  Ah,  little  do  they  dream  of 
those  earnest  lives.  The  moments  till  the 
boat  starts  are  counted  by  throbs.  Thoughts 
of  the  wounded  soldier  make  a  tumult  in 
their  hearts.  The  mother  has  carried  him  in 
her  bosom  through  the  vicissitudes  of  half  her 
life,  and  would  not  let  him  go  till  the  Repub- 
lic called  for  him.  Tenderly  as  her  affections 
gather  about  him,  he  is  no  longer  hers,  but 
the  country's.  The  loss  to  both  she  feels  in 
his  probable  death.  Her  life  has  been  so  use- 
ful and  devoted  as  to  attach  her  to  every 
neighbor  and  every  citizen,  and  has  made  her 
unconsciously  a  hearty  patriot.  If  her  eyes 
could  see  the  impertinence  she  excites,  she 
would  pity  it.  Blank  as  her  gaze  appears  to 
them,  it  is  fixed  upon  the  mangled  body  under 
the  bloody  sheet  in  the  busy  hospital.  If  her 
mind  could  dwell  a  moment  upon  the  empty 
splendor  about  her,  she  would  blush  at  her 


DEAWING-ROOM.  89 

weakness  and  infidelity.  Her  hands  are  un- 
used to  rest  in  idleness,  and  feel  to  her  as 
awkward  as  they  look  to  the  serene  idlers. 
"Will  her  boy  survive  to  see  the  Republic  tri- 
umphant ?  "Will  the  cause  demand  her  other 
boy  also  as  a  sacrifice  ?  Thy  will,  God  of 
Justice,  be  done. 


vn. 

GENTLEMEN'S    PARLOR 


yn. 

GENTLEMEN'S    PARLOB. 

THE  gentlemen's  parlor  after  dinner  is 
sometimes  interesting.  I  see  it  is  attractive 
now.  Take  an  easy-chair,  Jack,  and  give  it 
an  hour.  And  let  me  suggest  that  you  keep 
command  of  your  face.  To  enjoy  it  you  must 
take  the  tone  of  gravity  which  prevails.  And 
summon  all  your  good-nature,  for  the  pleasure 
of  the  scene  will  half  be  lost  if  viewed  severely. 
It  will  sufficiently  satirize  itself  without  assist- 
ance. 

The  club  of  self-admirers  and  self-exalters 
is  in  session.  It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  half- 
dozen  more  comfortable-looking  gentlemen.  A 
majority,  of  course,  are  bachelors.  So  much 


94  HALF   TINTS. 

sleekness  and  complacency  and  gravity  in  the 
same  number  of  married  men  would  be  unac- 
countable. Too  many  drafts  are  made  upon 
the  head  of  a  family  to  permit  his  character 
to  grow  crotchety  or  chronic.  The  bachelor, 
by  always  having  his  own  way,  soon  forgets 
that  there  is  any  other  stand-point  than  his 
own.  His  habits  of  thought  and  life  insensi- 
bly enwrap  him  like  a  cocoon,  and  in  time 
they  become  so  essentially  himself  as  to  be  the 
abode  of  his  brain  and  sensibility.  They  fit 
so  snugly  and  adhere  so  pertinaciously  as  to 
give  a  general  expression  of  tightness  to  his 
character.  There  is  nothing  to  man  more 
natural  than  selfishness.  It  is  inevitable  if 
possible.  If  you,  Jack,  had  not  married  at 
twenty,  and  become  a  grandfather  at  forty, 
you  could  never  have  become  the  man  you 
are ;  especially  if  a  combination  of  happy  or 
accidental  circumstances  had  made  you  rich. 
Instead  of  looking  on  as  you  now  do  with 
strange  interest  at  these  gentlemen,  you  would 
at  this  moment  be  in  the  same  placid  and 


95 

solitary  possession  of  a  little  universe  of  your 
own,  with  all  your  faculties  and  feelings  so 
completely  tethered  by  your  little  interests 
and  comforts,  as  to  make  you  also  think  your- 
self indispensable  to  the  world.  My  acquaint- 
ance with  Job  has  enabled  me  to  observe  the 
gradual  growth  of  so  peculiar  a  character. 
My  wife  likes  him,  notwithstanding  his  ways, 
and  he  likes  her .  (not  unwisely  nor  too  well), 
which  may  partly  explain  her  attachment. 
"With  all  his  crotchets,  he  has  a  certain 
thoughtful  consideration  for  others,  which  I 
have  observed  is  a  distinguishing  trait  of  per- 
sons of  his  class,  till  they  grow  old.  Until 
they  are  so  old  as  to  be  rigid,  they  seem  to 
be  conscious  that,  to  have  their  own  exactions 
respected,  they  must  yield  correspondingly  to 
the  demands  of  others.  This  may  be  only  the 
shrewdness  of  selfishness,  but  to  women  espe- 
cially it  is  agreeable.  I  observe  that  exactly 
in  proportion  as  Job  insists  upon  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  his  own  peculiar  notions,  he  yields 
a  respectful  assent  to  those  he  is  indiiferent 


96  HALF   TINTS. 

about.  He  lias  not  yet  attained  that  sover- 
eignty of  self-sufficiency  which  requires  un- 
qualified obeisance.  When  that  is  achieved 
he  will  have  advanced  beyond  the  understand- 
ing and  indulgence  of  any  but  his  own  class, 
and  will  naturally  surrender  himself  to  it. 
That  extremity  you  see  illustrated  now.  It 
shows  itself  in  a  spirit  of  accommodation  and 
tolerance  which  only  themselves  could  acquire 
or  practise.  Observing  their  forbearance  and 
politeness  and  kindness  to  each  other,  you 
would  hardly  suspect  they  could  take  each 
other  in  pieces,  whim  after  whim,  vanity  after 
vanity,  as  a  mechanician  would  his  machine. 
But  they  know  that  the  houses  they  live  in 
are  so  vitreous  that  the  bare  thought  of  a  stone 
terrifies  them.  Each  poor  conscious  quivering 
bundle  is  so  sensitive  to  exposure  or  hand- 
ling as  to  trust  itself  only  to  assortment  for 
security. 

Rich  and  prosperous,  and  by  virtue  of  cir- 
cumstances controlling  those  about  them,  they 
very  naturally  feel  uneasy  that  they  are  not 


GENTLEMEN'S  PARLOR.  97 

acknowledged  omnipotent.  That  feeling  as 
naturally  leads  them  to  disparage  what  they 
cannot  control.  They  are  annoyed  to  find 
that,  much  as  wealth  and  prosperity  have 
brought  them,  there  is  yet  much  more  which 
is  not  purchasable.  Nothing,  for  instance,  sur- 
prises or  plagues  them  more  than  a  manly 
utterance,  which  goes  crashing  its  way  through 
their  weak  cobwebs  of  fears  and  conceits,  by  a 
man  they  never  heard  of  as  successful. 

Their  themes  of  conversation  are  suggested 
mainly  by  their  prosperity  and  fears.  Their 
oracular  manner  of  disposing  of  all  vexed  ques- 
tions would  amuse  you.  Infatuated  with  their 
gains  and  successes,  they  are  unfitted  to  judge 
for  the  millions  who  are  struggling  for  per- 
sonal liberty  and  independence.  It  would  be 
extraordinary,  situated  as  they  are,  if  any 
one  of  them  should  *  entertain  sentiments  of 
generous  breadth  and  humanity.  The  people 
they  speak  of  as  an  unthinking  mob,  and  are 
always  ready  with  an  argument  in  favor  of 
limited  suffrage.  They  think  of  the  poor  man 

5 


98  HALF   TINTS. 

as  a  drudge  or  a  ruffian,  fit  only  for  menial 
service  or  revolution.  Hugging  so  tightly 
their  accumulations,  and  so  systematically 
hoarding  to  swell  them,  they  naturally  think 
their  own  attainment  supremely  the  ambition 
of  all,  and  morbidly  reason  themselves  inse- 
cure in  the  possession  of  that  which  ninety- 
nine  hundredths  must  desperately  covet.  Caste, 
therefore,  in  social  and  civil  life,  is  associated 
with  locks,  in  their  shallow  philosophy  of  pro- 
tection. The  man  whom  Souvestre  describes 
as  having  a  taste  for  poverty,  is  as  much  be- 
yond their  comprehension  as  an  archangel. 
They  think  that  tax-payers  take  care  of  most 
of  those  who  are  not.  Of  the  infinite  help 
the  poor  are  to  each  other  they  never  dream. 
They  exaggerate  the  immunities  of  wealth, 
and  grumble  at  the  ballot  because  it  will  not 
vote  them  titles  and  arm  them  with  special 
privileges.  Every  man  in  the  public  service, 
or  who  seeks  to  be,  is  characterized  as  a  cor- 
rupt politician.  Every  one  of  them,  they 
think,  has  his  price,  and  the  multitude  will 


99 

not  favor  such  as  are  not  to  be  bought.  The 
always  hopeful  and  anxiously  struggling  masses 
they  speak  of  as  '  these  people.'  One  of  these 
very  comfortable  half-dozen,  made  wealthy  by 
the  growth  of  a  thrifty  and  industrious  popula- 
tion about  him,  putting  fabulous  prices  upon 
the  vacant  land  left  him  by  his  grandfather, 
riding  one  bright  afternoon  in  the  public  park 
behind  his  splendid  bays  and  servant  in  livery, 
was  heard  to  say  felicitously,  with  a  grand 
wave  of  his  gloved  hand,  as  he  passed  the 
happy  crowd  on  foot,  gathered  on  the  green 
listening  to  the  music :  c  How  commendable, 
that  the  generous  wealth  of  this  opulent  city 
has  provided  so  delightful  a  place  for  all  these 
people.'  c  Such  people,'  he  is  nearly  of  be- 
lief, are  of  another  genus  than  himself,  which 
the  excuse  of  a  shadow  or  two  in  complexion 
would  establish.  That  such  people  are  per- 
mitted to  vote,  is  a  sufficient  reason  why 
persons  of  his  class  should  not  attend  the 
polls.  Not  voting  relieves  them  of  all  respon- 
sibility for  bad  government,  and  gives  them  a 


100  HALF   TINTS. 

sweeping  license  to  complain.  In  their  opin- 
ion, it  is  rather  vulgar  to  vote,  as  those  who 
do  the  voting  are  mainly  vulgar.  They  prefer 
to  keep  themselves  clean  by  avoiding  such 
associations.  If  they  do  not  exert  themselves 
to  elevate  the  people,  they  hold  themselves 
not  accountable  for  their  degradation.  The 
reply  of  the  idle  philosopher,  that  every  one 
ought  to  give  account  of  his  actions,  but  not 
of  his  leisure,  is  their  theory  of  responsibility. 
To  hear  them  talk,  you  would  discover  that 
their  idea  of  the  best  civilization  is  a  perfect 
and  unchangeable  classification  of  society. 
They  have  all  of  them  been  <  abroad,'  and 
express  themselves  delighted  with  the  settled 
condition  of  every  thing.  They  have  con- 
cluded that  society  is  happier  if  in  every  way 
limits  are  defined  for  it.  Opening  the  future 
to  every  man,  and  giving  him  a  fair  chance, 
is,  in  their  opinion,  the  cause  of  all  the  disorder 
and  discontent  in  free  America.  The  fact 
that  every  man  is  a  possible  law-maker  and 
executive,  is  in  their  apprehension  only  a 


101 

premium  upon  tumult  and  anarchy.  J  In 'the 
same  sense  they  regard  univei's^l/e^ipa^rf.^J 
a  disturbing  influence,  and  find  many  reasons 
for  believing  the  system  of  public  schools  per- 
ilous to  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  State. 

Their  mode  of  making  each  other  happy  is 
not  novel,  but  systematic.  They  are  so  kindly 
and  graceful  about  it  that  the  manner  is  almost 
as  pleasing  as  the  effect.  Softly  wrapped  and 
calmly  composed  as  they  seem,  they  yet  need 
to  have  their  complacency  occasionally  reen- 
forced.  It  has  been  my  pleasure  to  be  present 
frequently,  and  witness  the  delightful  process. 
And  you  must  know  the  charming  result  is 
additionally  sweetened  by  the  presence  of  a 
few  who  are  not  of  the  select  number,  as  a 
dignified  assemblage  of  any  sort  is  put  upon 
its  good  behavior  and  made  to  do  its  best  by 
an  audience.  The  admiration  and  envy  which 
are  understood  to  be  excited  in  those  who  listen, 
reflect  the  chosen  in  grander  proportions  than 
their  own  estimate  of  themselves  had  approxi- 
mated. These  meetings  for  admiration,  exalta- 


102  HALF   TINTS. 

• 

*    ft 


tion,  and  manipulation,  are  so  irregular  as  to 
appear  orcid^atal,  and  each  is  so  natural,  and 
easy,  and  self-adjusting,  as  to  appear  the  first 
and  .only.  The  least  show  of  art  in  their  con- 
duct would  make  them  a  caricature  even  to 
themselves,  as  an  exhibition  of  magic  to  ma- 
gicians would  be  ridiculous.  The  man  under 
the  table  must  be  concealed  if  credulity  and 
wonder  are  to  be  kept  in  countenance.  You 
remember,  long  ago,  in  the  old  school-house, 
the  explosive  effect  of  the  travelling  astronom- 
ical lecturer  attempting  to  illustrate  the  solar 
system  by  a  squeaking  planetarium. 

It  is  only  in  times  of  agitation  that  the 
soothing  oil  is  requisite.  The  first  muttering 
of  a  tempest  suggests  the  remedy.  The  appli- 
ances to  tranquillize  and  felicitate  are  set  in 
motion  by  a  single  shadow  of  trouble  in  one 
placid  face.  Doubloon,  one  of  the  six,  has 
been  unduly  alarmed  for  the  safety  of  an  in- 
vestment. An  insurance  company  in  which 
he  has  some  shares  has  suffered  by  a  sweeping 
fire.  An  occasion  when  all  are  together  is 


GENTLEMEN'S  PAELOE.  103 

seized  upon  to  put  him  back  upon  his  plane 
of  complacency.  One  by  one  his  other  invest- 
ments are  referred  to,  and  presented  in  the 
most  profitable  light.  His  sagacity  in  possess- 
ing certain  vacant  lots  is  commended  as  re- 
markable, and  he  quite  forgets  his  losses  in 
his  inestimable  prospective  gains.  Meanwhile 
silent,  he  pulls  his  jacket  over  his  round  belly, 
and  is  contented.  The  machine  is  fairly  started. 
Eagle,  the  glittering  holder  of  bank  stock,  comes 
in  next  for  a  flood  of  admiration.  No  common 
man,  it  is  agreed,  Doubloon  included,  could 
have  foreseen  the  happy  accidents  to  finances 
which  sent  his  shares  to  the  highest  figure  on 
the  list.  Exalted  and  made  easy,  he  is  ready 
to  join  with  the  rest  in  complimenting  Sov- 
ereign upon  his  wisdom  in  selecting  such  agen- 
cies as  have  converted  his  mines  of  anthracite 
into  silver.  ~No  other  man  in  the  Eepublic 
could  have  selected  so  many  men  to  represent 
him  without  being  deceived  in  some  of  them. 
So  exhibited,  Sovereign  sees  himself  in  greater 
proportions  than  his  ambition  had  ever  endowed 


104  HALF   TINTS. 

him  with.  Adjusting  his  wig,  he  is  all  at 
once  impressed  with  the  aptitude  of  Slug  for 
comprehensive  commercial  enterprises.  The 
rest  promptly  agree  with  him  in  asserting  that 
another  man  could  not  be  found  in  the  wide 
world  who  could  so  have  anticipated  the  growth 
of  cities  on  remote  uninhabited  shores.  And 
Slug's  imagination  floats  in  succession  the  rich 
argosies  which  brought  him  his  splendid  opu- 
lence. Thaler,  till  now  busy  with  sage  com- 
mendations of  the  rest,  has  settled  himself  to 
receive  his  own  share  of  encomium.  Which 
seeing,  Slug  lifts  himself,  delighted,  to  the  ex- 
pected service.  In  Slug's  opinion  Thaler  would 
have  done  as  well  or  better  with  the  same 
opportunities  which  he  himself  had  seized  with 
only  qualified  success.  Thaler's  stock  opera- 
tions proved,  in  the  judgment  of  all,  a  breadth 
of  wisdom  and  forecast,  which,  carried  into 
grander  schemes,  would  have  brought  him  mil- 
lions where  he  only  realized  thousands.  His 
modesty  in  being  contented  with  such  small 
returns,  when  as  well  they  might  have  been 


GENTLEMEN'S  PARLOR.  105 

prodigious,  is  rather  berated  than  commended. 
"Which  general  impression  of  boundless  untried 
resources  puts  Thaler  in  such  delightful  exalta- 
tion, as  to  make  him  unconsciously  push  back 
the  stiff  linen  about  his  neck  to  make  room 
for  his  swelling  person,  till  now  a  still  absorb- 
ent of  great  opinions.  And  now  only  Napo- 
leon, the  imperial  coin  of  the  realm,  remains 
to  be  lifted  by  generous  loosened  tongues  to 
the  top  of  possible  human  attainment.  His 
phrases  of  praise  have  been  the  weightiest  and 
most  graceful,  and  deserve  a  return  in  kind, 
compounded.  Serenely  he  listens  to  the  sweet 
strains  of  Doubloon,  Eagle,  Sovereign,  Slug, 
and  Thaler,  swelling  together  in  liquid  sym- 
phony. His  successes,  in  the  estimation  of 
all,  indicate  not  only  wisdom,  but  prophecy. 
E"o  man,  a  mere  man,  could  have  accomplished 
so  much,  and  so  easily.  Events  had  always 
occurred  as  he  predicted,  and  they  all  now  see 
plainly  their  shortsightedness  in  not  accepting 
him  a  seer.  If  his  sagacity  and  wisdom  had 

been  occupied  with  public  affairs,  it  is  easy  to 
5* 


106  HALF   TINTS. 

see  how  disastrous  collisions  between  nations 
would  have  been  avoided,  and  the  highest  civ- 
ilization secured  to  peoples  who  seem  going 
downward  in  darkness.  And,  all  glowing,  the 
six  simultaneously  rise,  in  unctuous  plenitude 
of  sweet  praises.  What  wonder  if  for  a  week 
after  they  look  out  upon  the  fair  world  and 
wonder  it  is  not  fairer,  and  that  better  beings 
than  £  these  people '  are  not  vouchsafed  to  min* 
ister  to  them. 


VIII. 

THE    EXCHANGE 


VIII. 

THE  EXCHANGE. 

THE  common  room,  in  which  the  multitude 
devour  newspapers  and  tobacco,  and  talk  and 
write  furiously,  is  too  remindful  of  sober  events 
to  linger  in.  All  the  great  and  little  bubbles 
have  representatives  in  it.  The  intelligent  eye 
will  readily  classify  them.  The  more  desper- 
ate schemes  are  represented  by  men  who  else- 
where would  pass  for  clergymen.  They  are 
not  noisy,  nor  impatient,  but  can  wait.  They 
prefer  to  exhibit  their  maps  or  specimens  or 
models  in  sumptuous  private  parlors,  and  only 
to  those  whose  ears  are  nearest  their  pockets. 
Their  schemes  and  services  would  be  cheap- 
ened by  a  public  display  of  them ;  besides, 


110  HALF   TENTS. 

they  know  that  birds  are  not  caught  by  shak- 
ing the  net.  These  respectable-looking  gentle- 
men have  histories  and  habitations,  which 
have  no  connection  with  present  purposes,  and 
are  not  referred  to.  Nothing,  indeed,  could 
so  much  disturb  their  equanimity  as  to  meet 
unexpectedly  those  who  have  known  them  inti- 
mately. Old  matters  are  so  foreign  from  the 
new  that  they  are  loath  to  have  them  compli- 
cated. Their  grand  theories  and  projects  of 
development,  seeking  great  capital  to  try  them, 
would  be  embarrassed  by  the  exposure  of  only 
failure  and  fraud  in  other  enterprises  of  theirs, 
quite  as  promising.  They  prefer  to  have  their 
arguments  of  to-day  stand  for  themselves,  un- 
shaken by  illustrations  from  records  of  decep- 
tion and  ruin. 

Dryden  says,  that  when  the  nation  boils 
the  scum  rises,  the  truth  of  which,  it  would 
seem,  has  been  proven  in  the  course  of  our  war. 
In  the  general  upheaval  and  trial  of  all  the 
elements  of  society,  the  alert  adventurers  have 
reaped  the  advantages.  Fixed  interests  might 


THE   EXCHANGE.  Ill 

be  advanced,  but  the  danger  of  their  destruc- 
tion was  imminent.  Even  these  were  accom- 
modated as  far  as  possible  to  the  prevailing 
spirit  of  speculation.  Uncertainty  fast  be- 
came the  rule,  which  every  new  issue  of  prom- 
ises, every  call  for  troops,  every  disaster 
in  the  field,  helped  to  establish.  Men  most 
faithless  in  the  future  of  the  Republic  seemed 
to  thrive  best  in  her  darkest  hours.  After  a 
bad  defeat,  the  faithful  citizen,  sorrowing  and 
silent,  passing  through  assemblages  of  desper- 
ate speculators,  such  as  at  night  crowded  the 
more  public  rooms  of  the  great  hotels,  and 
observing  the  crowd  jubilant  over  calamity, 
suffered  an  insult  to  his  patriotism  which  he 
must  ever  wonder  he  could  endure. 

That  meek-looking  man  we  met  as  we 
came  in ;  did  you  notice  him  ?  He  is  a  char- 
acter I  have  observed  with  curious  interest. 
He  slid  by  as  noiselessly  as  an  apparition. 
His  cat-footed  tread,  to  those  who  hear  it,  tells 
his  history.  The  only  man  who  seems  to  know 
him  has  told  me  he  is  rich.  You  would  not 


112  HALF   TINTS. 

suspect  it  to  look  at  him.  So  much  modesty 
and  retirement  of  manner  you  never  saw  in  a 
slave.  His  dress  and  accessaries  betoken  any 
thing  but  wealth.  He  is  intelligent,  but  his 
thoughts  have  the  shakiness  of  terror.  Much 
as  he  knows,  his  life  is  a  lie,  and  his  knowledge 
is  of  little  worth.  He  has  sailed  the  Nile, 
crossed  the  Great  Desert,  inspected  Pompeii, 
roamed  over  the  Holy  Land,  explored  the  Cat- 
acombs, climbed  Mont  Blanc,  domesticated  in 
all  the  great  cities,  gone  down  under  the  ocean 
into  the  mines  of  Cornwall,  been  shipwrecked, 
escaped  icebergs,  more  than  all,  travelled  his 
own  country,  seeing  its  mountains,  and  caves, 
and  rivers,  and  great  personages,  yet  he  steals 
about  as  if  crime  had  been  his  occupation, 
and  every  victim  was  pursuing  him.  Alas,  his 
only  real  enemies  are  the  tax-gatherer  and 
himself.  His  wealth  is  in  securities,  and  the 
concealment  of  it  is  the  mystery  and  burden 
of  his  life.  He  flits  from  country  to  country, 
from  city  to  city,  and  is  only  long  enough 
necessarily  anywhere  to  gather  his  dividends. 


THE    EXCHANGE.  113 

His  avarice  and  cowardice  have  made  him 
shrink  and  cower  till  wretchedness  and  terror 
express  themselves  in  every  lineament  and 
movement.  The  wreck  of  an  intellect  never 
looked  out  of  a  wasted  body  and  empty 
brain  more  pitifully  than  this  wretched  crea- 
ture begs  concealment  and  obscurity  from 
every  shadow  and  every  man  the  world  over. 

You  are  reminded  of  the  trader's  device, 
before  the  steamboat  was  invented,  when  the 
Southwest  was  infested  with  red  men  and  rob- 
bers. Receiving  specie  at  New  Orleans  for 
his  produce,  he  put  it  in  a  wet  buckskin  belt 
of  sufficient  length  to  surround  the  body, 
which,  as  it  dried,  shrunk  round  the  coin,  till 
no  amount  of  shaking  would  cause  it  to  jingle. 
Just  so  is  the  humanity  of  this  man  shrunk 
round  his  possessions,  till  his  heart  never  jin- 
gles with  a  manly  impulse. 

The  middle  man  of  the  group  before  you, 
with  the  polished  forehead,  pulling  his  beard ; 
observe  him.  He  is  a  genius  in  speculation. 
So  securely  poised,  his  figure  would  suggest  to 


TTAT/F    TINTS. 

sculpture  a  statue  of  destiny.  His  spinal  col- 
umn must  be  in  a  direct  line  to  the  centre  of 
the  earth,  so  upright  he  appears.  His  leisurely 
generalizations  have  the  freshness  of  original 
wisdom,  and  are  compact  enough  for  proverbs. 
So  far  above  the  ordinary  plane,  his  easy 
guesses  give  an  impression  of  prescience.  All 
things  in  all  lights,  and  his  words  the  essence 
of  all.  The  clatter  of  the  squad  in  the  corner 
over  the  decline  in  Erie,  he  hears  as  he  does 
the  oaths  and  glasses  in  the  room  adjoining. 
The  mystery  or  peril,  to  the  thoughtless  talk- 
ers and  drinkers  invisible,  is  patent  enough  to 
him ;  he  seems  to  know  the  motives  of  the  manip- 
ulators, and  to  divine  results.  His  presump- 
tion is  so  supreme  that  it  confuses  and  blinds. 
So  much  composure  must  be  the  token  of  ex- 
traordinary wisdom.  Ephemera,  distinguish- 
able from  motes,  accept  him  a  sun,  and  flour- 
ish in  his  light,  till  the  market  turns.  His 
own  means  are  locked  up,  or  he  would  risk 
them  all  in  the  scheme  his  judgment  approves. 
If  his  friend,  who  approves  also,  and  who  is 


THE   EXCHANGE.  115 

so  fortunate  as  to  have  some  thousands  loose, 
will  let  him  take  it  and  use  it  as  he  would  his 
own,  he  shall  share  with  him  the  profits.  Of 
losses,  nothing  is  said.  If  they  occur,  his 
friend  will  enjoy  a  monopoly,  the  philosopher 
perhaps  losing  a  little  in  confidence.  So  he 
deceives,  and  betrays,  and  flourishes.  In  a 
clean  skin,  in  fresh  raiment,  immaculate  man- 
ners, and  the  repose  of  virtue,  he  is  the  incar- 
nation of  fraud,  and  he  commands  the  admi- 
ration, if  not  the  respect,  of  those  he  has  de- 
frauded. The  man  who  just  now  touched  his 
hat  to  him  was  nearly  ruined  by  him,  I  know. 
The  scene  revives  events  of  the  life  and 
times  of  John  Law.  Anecdotes  related  by 
Thiers  in  his  memoir  of  that  incomparable 
schemer,  are  worth  iterating,  to  illustrate  the 
present,  and  show  how  history  is  repeated, 
after  one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  All  classes 
of  society,  says  the  historian,  mingled  in  the 
Hue  Quincampoix,  cherishing  the  same  illu- 
sions, noblemen,  churchmen,  traders,  quiet 
citizens,  and  servants,  whom  their  suddenly 


116  HALF   TINTS. 

acquired  fortune  had  filled  with  the  hope 
of  rivalling  their  masters.  All  the  houses 
in  the  street  had  been  converted  into  offices 
by  the  stock-jobbers ;  the  occupants  gave  up 
their  apartments,  the  merchants  their  shops ; 
houses  which  had  brought  a  rent  of  seven 
or  eight  hundred  francs,  were  cut  up  into 
some  thirty  offices,  and  brought  fifty  or  sixty 
thousand  francs ;  stock-jobbing  made  itself 
felt  in  rents  as  in  securities.  A  cobbler, 
who  had  converted  his  stall  into  an  office 
by  placing  in  it  some  stools,  a  table,  and 
a  writing-desk,  rented  it  for  two  thousand 
francs  a  day.  A  humpbacked  man,  in  the 
course  of  a  few  days,  acquired  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  livres  by  letting  out  his 
hump  as  a  writing-desk.  The  brokers  organ- 
ized themselves  into  regular  swindling  com- 
panies. They  speculated  upon  the  constant 
rise,  but  more  often  still  upon  the  fluctuations 
which  they  had  the  skill  to  produce.  They 
ranged  themselves  in  a  line  in  the  Rue  Quin- 
campoix,  ready  to  act  at  the  first  signal.  At 


THE   EXCHANGE.  117 

the  sound  of  a  "bell  in  tlie  office  of  a  man 
named  Papillon,  they  offered,  all  at  once,  the 
shares,  sold  them,  and  effected  a  decline.  At 
a  different  signal,  they  "bought  at  the  lowest 
price  that  which  they  had  sold  at  the  highest, 
and  in  this  way  brought  about  a  reaction; 
thus  they  always  '  sold  dear  and  bought  cheap.' 
The  fluctuations  were  so  rapid  and  so  consid- 
erable, that  brokers  receiving  shares  to  sell 
had  time  to  make  large  profits  by  retaining 
them  only  one  day.  One  is  mentioned,  who, 
commissioned  to  sell  some  shares,  was  absent 
two  days.  It  was  thought  that  he  had  stolen 
them.  ISTot  at  all ;  he  repaid  the  price  faith- 
fully, but  meantime  had  made  a  million  for 
himself.  Servants  became  suddenly  as  rich  as 
their  masters.  One  of  them,  meeting  his  mas- 
ter walking  in  the  rain,  stopped  his  carriage 
to  offer  him  a  seat.  A  footman  had  gained  so 
much  that  he  provided  himself  with  a  fine 
carriage;  but  the  first  day  it  came  to  the 
door,  he,  instead  of  stepping  into  the  vehicle, 
mounted  up  to  his  old  station  behind.  Another, 


118  HALF   TINTS. 

in  a  similar  predicament,  brought  himself  well 
off  by  pretending  he  got  up  only  to  see  if  there 
was  room  on  the  back  for  two  or  three  more 
lackeys,  whom  he  was  resolved  to  hire  instantly. 
Law's  coachman  had  made  so  great  a  fortune 
that  he  asked  a  dismission  from  his  service, 
which  was  readily  granted,  on  condition  of  pro- 
curing another  as  good  as  himself.  The  man 
therefore  brought  two  coachmen  to  his  master, 
both  of  them  excellent  drivers,  and  desired 
him  to  make  choice  of  one,  at  the  same  time 
saying  that  he  would  take  the  other  for  his 
own  carnage.  One  night  at  the  opera,  a  Made- 
moiselle de  Begond,  observing  a  lady  enter  mag- 
nificently dressed,  and  covered  with  diamonds, 
jogged  her  mother,  and  said,  '  I  am  much  mis- 
taken if  this  fine  lady  is  not  Mary,  our  cook.' 
The  report  spread  through  the  theatre,  till  it 
came  to  the  ears  of  the  lady,  who,  coming  up 
to  Madame  de  Begond,  said,  'I  am  indeed 
Mary,  your  cook.  I  have  gained  large  sums 
in  the  Hue  Quincampoix.  I  love  fine  clothes 
and  fine  jewels,  and  am  accordingly  dressed  in 


THE   EXCHANGE.  119 

them.  I  have  paid  for  every  thing,  am  in 
debt  to  nobody,  and  pray  what  has  any  per- 
son to  say  to  this  ? '  At  another  time,  some 
persons  of  quality  beholding  a  gorgeous  figure 
alight  from  a  most  splendid  equipage,  and 
inquiring  what  great  lady  that  was,  one  of 
her  lackeys  answered,  'A  woman  who  has 
tumbled  from  a  garret  into  a  carriage.'  One 
Brignaud,  son  of  a  baker,  one  of  the  suddenly 
rich,  being  desirous  of  having  a  superb  service 
of  plate,  purchased  all  the  articles  exposed 
for  sale  in  the  shop  of  a  goldsmith  for  forty 
thousand  livres,  and  sent  them  home  to  his 
wife,  with  orders  to  set  them  out  properly  for 
supper,  to  which  he  had  invited  many  persons 
of  distinction.  The  lady,  not  understanding 
the  business,  arranged  the  plate  according  to 
her  fancy,  and  without  regard  to  their  real 
use  ;  so  that  when  supper  was  announced,  the 
guests  could  not  forbear  from  indulging  in 
peals  of  laughter  to  see  the  soup  served  up 
in  a  basin  for  receiving  the  offerings  at 
church,  the  sugar  in  a  censer,  and  chalices 


120  HALF   TINTS. 

holding  the  place  of  salt-cellars,  while  most 
of  the  other  articles  were  more  suited  to  a 
toilet  than  a  sideboard.  Those  who  had  be- 
come rich,  rushed  into  those  violent  pleasures 
and  excesses  which  the  soul  of  a  gambler 
craves ;  they  displayed  in  their  newly-acquired 
mansions  that  barbarous,  monstrous  luxury 
which  signalized  the  age  of  Roman  corrup- 
tion. 

These  incidents,  remember,  word  for  word, 
are  gathered,  here  and  there,  from  the  history 
of  John  Law  and  the  Mississippi  Bubble,  Paris, 
Anno  Domini,  1719.  Yet  the  infatuated  exalt 
the  arts  and  conspiracies  of  the  exchange  as 
fresh  inventions  of  genius,  and  the  thoughtless 
pronounce  their  results  unparalleled. 


IX. 

AN    INMATE. 


IX. 

AN    INMATE. 

of  nothing,  my  friend,  which  causes 
so  much  suffering  as  diseased  sensibility.  Per- 
sons of  poetic  nature,  leading  an  insulated  life, 
are  sure  to  be  more  or  less  its  victims.  A 
remarkable  instance  came  to  my  notice  during 
the  summer.  "Whence  the  solitary  man  came, 
who  he  was,  no  one  knew,  and  no  one  had 
cared  to  know.  i  He  paid  his  bills,  and  ap- 
peared a  gentleman,'  was  all  they  could  say 
of  him  at  the  office.  How  my  accidental 
acquaintance  with  him  commenced,  I  cannot 
recall ;  but  once  begun,  his  siren  sympathy 
and  strange  wisdom  enthralled  me.  I  saw  him 
occasionally,  perhaps  too  often,  in  his  solitary 


124  HALF   TINTS. 

chamber,  in  Ms  worst  and  sweetest  moods. 
At  times  he  kept  me  so  vividly  reminded  of 
the  Opium-Eater's  awful  Ladies  of  Sorrow — 
those  impersonations  of  'the  mighty  abstrac- 
tions that  incarnate  themselves  in  all  indi- 
vidual sufferings  of  man's  heart ' — as  to  make 
his  presence  as  terrible  as  at  other  times  it  was 
charming.  Now  his  eyes  were  i  sweet  and 
subtle ; '  now  they  were  *  filled  with  perishing 
dreams,  and  with  wrecks  of  forgotten  de- 
lirium ; '  now  they  had  c  the  fierce  light  of  a 
blazing  misery.'  At  such  times  he  was  dumb 
to  conscious  utterance,  and  solemnly  and  pro- 
foundly abstracted.  He  paced  his  room  or 
agonized  in  bed  till  the  fearful  fever  or  tem- 
pest was  ended,  and  the  cause  of  it  all  remained 
as  dark  as  the  hidden  forces  of  nature  we  con- 
jecture only  from  their  effects. 

I  could  see  that  he  regarded  the  comfort- 
able hotel  as  a  sort  of  hospital  for  his  malady. 
Nobody  troubled  him  with  questions.  I  once 
heard  him  say,  sadly  (he  never  was  harsh), 
4  The  last  thing  even  the  most  sensible  man 


AN   INMATE.  125 

learns  is  not  to  ask  questions.'  The  chamber- 
girl  only,  besides  myself,  seemed  to  know  just 
when  those  attacks  of  himself,  so  to  speak, 
began  and  ended.  She  stepped  lightly  by  his 
door,  and  put  a  finger  across  her  lips  to  repress 
any  needless  noise.  Sometimes,  during  those 
tedious  paroxysms,  when  his  profound  nature 
seemed  'upheaved  by  central  convulsions' — 
when  his  heart  trembled  and  brain  rocked 
'under  conspiracies  of  tempest  from  without 
and  tempest  from  within' — he  sent  for  me; 
but  when  they  had  passed,  I  went  to  him, 
unbidden.  Going  too  suddenly  in  upon  him 
one  day,  I  found  him  sitting  at  the  table,  with 
a  closed  Bible  in  his  hand.  Pointing  me  to  a 
seat,  he  said  thoughtfully  (I  shall  never  forget 
his  varying  emphasis),  with  his  eyes  tenderly 
fixed  upon  the  sacred  volume :  '  The  way  to 
Heaven  in  a  book.  Yes,  the  way  to  HEAVEN 
in  a  book.  Yes,  the  way  to  Heaven  IN  A 
BOOK.  Yes,  the  WAY  to  Heaven  in  a  book. 
Yes '  (with  an  emotional  emphasis  melting 
away  all  creeds),  'THE  way  to  Heaven  in  a 


126  HALF  TINTS. 

book.'    What  more  could  be  said,  I  thought, 
and  have  often  thought  since. 

His  talk  upon  the  commonest  topics,  if  he 
talked  at  all,  was  always  refreshing  and  sug- 
gestive. He  argued  nothing;  he  seemed  to 
have  got  beyond  argument;  seeing  through 
all  processes,  and  expressing  only  results.  He 
was  therefore  never  tedious,  but  always  strik- 
ing. Assuming  that  you  knew  as  much  as  him- 
self, and  that  therefore  his  conclusions  must 
be  yours,  even  the  appearance  of  dogmatism 
he  avoided.  Talking  with  him,  you  would  at 
times  be  even  more  surprised  at  yourself  than 
at  him;  for  his  manner  was  so  encouraging 
and  inspiring  as  to  give  to  your  faculties  a 
startling  vigor,  emancipating  and  translating 
you,  mind  and  soul.  When  freest  he  seemed 
so  free  of  the  ordinary  auxiliaries  to  thought, 
as  to  make  you  ashamed  too  much  to  rely 
upon  them  yourself.  Unwittingly,  too,  you 
would  tell  your  history,  in  your  free  utter- 
ances, as  he  told  his  own  in  his,  if  you  but 
understood  them.  ('  For  history,'  he  once  said, 


AN   INMATE.  127 

i  is  not  the  story  of  the  man's  daily  walk  and 
tailor's  bills,  but  of  that  real  life,  which  we 
dare  not  with  our  lips  tell  any  one.  But,  in 
little  bits,  it  tells  itself,  in  part ;  and  so  our 
friends  love  us.  If  it  could  utter  itself  wholly, 
would  they,  perhaps,  hate  us,  or  look  at  us 
with  awe,  as  strange  genii,  issuing  in  fearful 
mist  from  the  strong  box  of  their  friendship, 
into  which  they  had  locked  us  as  common 
mortals.') 

His  faculties,  in  his  best  moods,  had  a  deli- 
cacy and  fineness,  so  to  speak,  only  exceeded 
in  his  acute  and  trembling  sensibility.  Where 
his  intellect  could  not  penetrate,  his  universal 
sympathy  seemed  to  admit  him  unquestioned. 
In  life,  his  heart  was  with  the  weak  and  the 
struggling.  In  literature,  his  taste  was  most 
at  home  in  the  elevating  and  emotional.  Once 
I  heard  him  recite  Coleridge's  sublime  Hymn 
to  Sunrise  in  the  Yale  of  Chamouni,  and  all 
I  loved  and  hoped  seemed  gathered  about  the 
summit  of  Mont  Blanc.  He  seemed  trans- 
ported. When  he  repeated,  with  f  solemn  air,' 


128  HALF   TESTS. 

the  scene  of  family  worship  in  the  Cotter's  Sat- 
urday Night,  I  found  myself  on  my  knees,  by 
the  little  old  chair,  at  the  '  ingle  side,'  with 
mother,  sisters,  and  brothers,  forming  £  a  circle 
wide,'  intent  while  *  the  saint,  the  father,  and 
the  husband '  prayed ;  and  when  he  dwelt 
upon  the  passage  where 

The  parent  pair  their  SECRET  homage  pay, 
And  proffer  up  to  Heaven  the  warm  request 
That  He  who  stills  the  raven's  clamorous  nest, 

And  decks  the  lily  fair  in  flowery  pride, 

Would,  in  the  way  His  wisdom  sees  the  best, 

For  them  and  for  their  little  ones  provide ; 

But  chiefly,  hi  their  hearts  with  grace  divine  preside  ; 

I  felt  the  tears  of  penitence  and  gratitude 
overflowing  my  eyes.  In  A'  the  airts  the 
wind  can  blaw,  I  dearly  like  the  West,  he 
brought  me  my  darling  Mary  of  childhood. 
When  he  recited  To  Mary  in  Heaven,  I 
heard  the  'groans  that  rend  the  breast'  of 
every  distressed  lover.  In  his  repetition  of  the 
sweet  poem,  To  the  Mountain  Daisy,  I  heard 
the  inspiring  song  of  the  'bonnie  lark,  wi' 


AN   INMATE.  129 

speckled  breast,'  bending  the  '  crimson-tipped 
flower  'mang  the  dewy  weet,'  and  'upward- 
springing,  blithe,  to  greet  the  purpling  east.' 
But- to  hear  him  murmur,  Come  into  the  Gar- 
den, Maud,  was  a  pleasure  above  description. 
The  '  soul  of  the  rose '  went  into  his  blood,  and 
the  ' breeze  of  the  morning'  moved  in  his 
voice.  Led  bj  the  sentiment  of  the  poet,  he 
walked  the  garden,  and  the  flowers  greeted 
him.  You  heard  the  red  rose  cry,  and  the 
white  rose  weep,  and  the  larkspur  listen,  and 
the  lily  whisper ;  and  when  there  fell  c  a 
splendid  tear  from  the  passion-flower,'  one 
not  less  splendid  broke  over  his  illuminated 
face. 

Sometimes  he  made  verses — -just  to  amuse 
himself,  he  said,  as  he  would  play  a  game  of 
solitaire.  If  these  I  quote  show  the  elevation 
and  tone  of  his  feelings  when  most  elastic  and 
expressible,  you  may  guess  their  depth  and 
darkness  when  unutterable : 


130  HALF   TINTS. 

****** 

Seem'st  thou  never  worn  nor  weary, 
Never  sad  or  never  dreary ; 
Weights  of  others  always  bearing, 
Griefs  of  others  always  sharing. 
Heart  so  tender,  timid  never, 
Hands  so  gentle,  willing  ever ; 
Wounds  of  thine  in  strength  concealing, 
Wounds  of  others  always  healing. 

The  stricken  heart  could  not  endure, 
Thy  love  withheld,  its  balm  and  cure ; 
Despairing  want  could  hope  no  more, 
Thy  kindness  lost,  its  trusted  store. 
The  sun  obscured,  the  sickly  plant 
But  feels  the  more  its  every  want; 
An  hour  of  cloud,  it  yields  to  blight, 
Despairing  ever  of  the  light. 

Tongue  of  distress,  never  so  dumb, 
Utters  its  plaint  when  thou  dost  come ; 
Assured  at  least  a  kindly  ear, 
A  tender  blessing  and  soothing  tear. 
The  burden  off,  the  eyes  of  care 
Brighten  and  beam  as  heaven  were  there ; 
Smoothed  the  pillow,  the  throbbing  brain 
Survives  the  pang  and  sleeps  again. 


AN   INMATE.  131 

One  morning  I  missed  Mm.  Inquiring  at 
the  office,  they  said  he  had  departed.  In- 
quiring further,  sometime  after,  I  learned, 
alas,  that  he  had  departed — this  life — by  his 
own  hand. 


X. 

NOT    A    SERMON. 


NOT    A    SEKMON. 

'  Sra,'  said  he,  the  strange  man,  at  the  end 
of  our  last  long  interview,  i  my  words  are  not 
to  teach  you,  but  to  refer  you  to  what  you 
know.  If  you  can  be  taught  by  preaching, 
they  are  not  for  you.  Results,  not  processes, 
teach.  If  they  do  not  show  their  own  growth, 
narrate  their  own  histories,  they  are  not  such, 
or  you  do  not  apprehend  them.  You  are 
understood  to  see  in  a  gray  hair  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  a  life.  You  are  presumed  to  know 
goodness  by  its  fruits,  and  how  utter  is  sorrow 
which  is  unutterable. 

'  The  mother  may  make  the  boy,  but  the 
man  must  make  himself,  and  the  man  will  be 


136  HALF   TINTS. 

as  incomprehensible  to  his  mother  as  to  his 
friend.  Precepts  are  so  often  written  in  water, 
while  experiences  infix  themselves  as  by  the 
point  of  a  diamond.  The  scar  from  a  wound 
got  in  a  failing  effort,  or  the  great  throb  felt 
upon  possession  of  a  soul-sought  object,  will 
make  us  shun  or  pursue  as  no  words  could, 
however  wise  or  sagacious.  "We  bow  to  the 
wisdom  of  King  Solomon's  preaching,  but  do 
not  account  for  the  apostasy  of  his  son  Re- 
hoboam. 

'  The  father  would  have  his  daughter  always 
immaculate.  Her  companions  he  sees  as  she 
cannot  see  them.  She  does  not  see  them  at 
all.  Her  eyes  are  not  opened  upon  them  with 
that  view.  He  knows  if  they  are  meet  before 
she  has  begun  to  ask  herself.  The  false  or 
corrupt  book  he  has  stolen  an  enjoying  glance 
at  himself,  he  would  put  from  her  as  certain 
death.  He  sees  in  her  the  wife,  and  mother, 
and  guardian  of  a  home.  He  knows  that  the 
truth,  and  fidelity,  and  virtue,  are  not  only 
good  in  themselves,  but  that  they  are  neces- 


NOT   A    SERMON.  137 

sary  to  save  society  from  wreck.  His  anxieties 
do  not  so  much  result  from  a  love  of  the  good 
and  the  right,  as  from  a  consciousness  of  evils 
and  perils  to  be  avoided  and  escaped. 

4  The  fixed  expression  and  filling  eye  of  the 
parent  when  the  lover  of  his  daughter  asks 
her  in  marriage,  are  profoundest  mysteries  to 
the  youthful  petitioner.  He  cannot  conceive 
the  mirage  of  twenty  years  of  peaceful  and 
tragic  life  which  that  moment  looms  in  the 
vision  of  the  parent,  and  strains  to  painful  ten- 
sion his  faculties  of  memory  and  reflection. 
The  child  is  seen  at  every  stage  of  growth  and 
development,  from  babyhood  to  maturity,  with 
every  obstacle  and  temptation  which  beset  her 
path,  and  every  hope  and  triumph  and  rapture 
which  inspired  it.  He  has  just  learned  how 
entirely  she  is  made  up  of  himself,  and  him- 
self of  her,  and  how  completely  her  marriage 
will  change  their  relations  with  each  other 
and  all  the  world.  Her  happiness  and  prog- 
ress and  purity  have  enlisted  his  life,  and  no 
part  of  his  life  worth  any  thing  is  separable 


138  HALF   TINTS. 

from  hers.  He  is  asked  to  surrender  the 
object  of  every  hope,  anxiety,  and  emotion, 
and  trust  her  to  the  guidance  of  blindness  and 
chance.  His  dumb  face  and  the  falling  tear 
are  emblems  of  his  life  as  at  that  moment  he 
feels  it  must  be  when  she  is  gone. 

'  Death  is  as  great  a  wonder  to  Youth  as 
life  is  to  Age.  Youth  .is  ever  growing  and 
realizing.  His  look  into  the  sunless  grave  is 
blank  and  bewildered.  His  round  eyes  and 
radiant  face  are  set  upon  an  upward,  sunny 
path.  No  blow  of  disappointment  has  stag- 
gered his  expectation,  and  left  an  eternal  mark 
upon  him.  He  employs  no  spies,  and  advances 
without  scouts.  He  has  not  learned  the  uses 
of  treachery  and  caution.  Easy  advancement 
has  made  him  bold  and  confident.  He  believes 
the  future  is  in  his  fist.  He  does  not  know 
that  so  far  all  helps  have  been  supplied  him, 
and  will  continue  to  be  supplied,  till  he  fails. 
The  fledgling,  left  to  flutter  alone,  is  hopefully 
and  trustingly  observed  by  those  who  know 
forces  and  currents.  Humanity  has  generously 


NOT   A   SERMON.  139 

opened  a  way  and  given  him  a  start.  His 
sails  belly  with  all  good  wishes.  The  world 
would  not  have  him  fail.  It  will  not  give  up 
its  faith  in  its  best  ideal.  Individuals  acknowl- 
edge they  have  failed,  but  they  do  not  quite 
get  their  consent  to  believe  that  an  individ- 
ual may  not  exist  who  cannot  fail.  If  the  one 
well-remembered  fatal  thing  done  or  omitted 
had  been  omitted  or  done,  they  might  have 
been  such  themselves.  The  possible  man  who 
cannot  err  nor  blunder,  and  who  cannot  be 
betrayed  nor  baffled,  is  the  universal  Messiah. 
"Wisdom,  dumb  and  grave,  and  Experience, 
with  doubt  and  discouragement  in  every 
wrinkle,  forget  truth  and  life,  lose  themselves 
in  the  contemplation  of  his  beautiful  vigor 
and  fleetness,  and  believe  him  invincible. 
They  look  through  the  long  past,  and  see 
themselves  in  the  fascinating  being.  Prodigy 
and  miracle.  Figure  erect— limbs  round — 
veins  full  and  hot— skin  glistening— hair  shak- 
ing out  the  sunshine.  So  full  of  bounding 
life  that  his  sleep  must  be  disturbed  by  ravish- 


140  HALF   TINTS. 

ing  dreams  of  to-morrow.  Suggestion  of  dan- 
gers in  his  way  would  be  insufficient  to  put 
him  on  his  guard,  if  time  were  allowed  to  hear 
it.  He  must  learn  obstacles  by  confronting 
them,  and  encountering  them  one  at  a  time, 
his  strong  right  arm  is  strengthened  by  strik- 
ing them  down.  He  makes  a  joke  of  armor 
and  defences,  and  calls  deliberation  or  hesita- 
tion weakness.  But  one  day  Fraud  or  Paral- 
ysis strikes,  and  new  eyes  are  suddenly  given 
him.  He  sees  so  many  doubts  and  difficult! 
in  his  way,  that  he  can  hardly  determine 
move  at  all.  He  learns  a  new  language, 
applies  new  names.  He  discovers  motives, 
and  dizzies  trying  to  sound  them.  His  a: 
ieties  and  disappointments  are  hooks  in 
side  which  turn  him  over  and  over  in  h* 
Abstraction  puzzles  him.  He  will  be  seeing 
things  without  their  disguises,  and  the  habit 
soon  becomes  his  character.  Dealing  so  much 
with  shams  and  devices,  he  comes  to  suspect 
even  the  genuine  and  real,  and  feels  daily  the 
gradual  decay  and  death  of  the  ardor,  ingen- 


NOT  A   SEEMOtf.  141 

uousness  and  confidence  which  ennobled  and 
inspired  the  best  part  of  his  life.  His  pene- 
tration and  suspicious  second-sight  make  him 
acquainted  with  the  little  arts  and  artifices  of 
his  fellows,  and  he  acquires  a  certain  strength 
and  mastery  by  appropriating  them.  But  such 
a  bundle  of  weaknesses  he  feels  must  fall  apart. 
Such  an  embodiment  of  frailties,  instincts,  little 
qualities,  little  faculties,  and  distrust,  cannot 
last.  Made  up  in  great  part  of  what  is  worn 
out,  debauched,  wasted,  and  worthless,  the  most 
natural  thing,  he  thinks,  is  that  it  should  die. 
6  An  attempt  by  law-makers  to  define  mo- 
tives, and  by  judges  to  punish  them,  would  be 
puzzling  occupation.  Penances  and  penalties 
can  only  be  affixed  to  them  by  ourselves  and 
Omniscience.  To  a  self-observant  man  nothing 
can  be  more  interesting  and  surprising  than 
his  own,  as  they  appear  to  himself,  and  as 
they  are  interpreted  by  others.  Often  they 
seem  wholly  beyond  his  comprehension  or  con- 
trol. They  are  prompted  he  does  not  always 
know  how  nor  why,  and  will  lead  him  he 


142  HALF   TINTS. 

cannot  tell  where.  Their  meanness  often  hu- 
miliates him,  and  he  uses  the  utmost  caution 
and  carefulness  to  conceal  them.  His  com- 
placency is  only  preserved  by  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  world's  ignorance  of  them.  Better 
motives  than  the  real  ones  are  often  attributed 
to  him,  which  both  satirize  and  dignify  his 
conduct.  His  greatest  achievements  often 
spring  from  motives  so  insignificant  that  he 
would  be  ashamed  to  acknowledge  them.  His 
apparent  and  exemplary  virtues  would  lose 
much  of  their  effect  if  the  secret  crimes  which 
alarmed  them  into  exercise  were  exposed. 
Worse  motives  are  also  found  for  his  conduct 
than  ever  entered  his  heart,  the  possession  of 
which  would  make  him  a  different  man.  If 
conspicuous  good  to  others  result  from  an  act 
meant  primarily  to  benefit  himself,  his  saga- 
cious benevolence  is  praised,  and  his  char- 
acter accepted  a  model.  If  wrong  be  inci- 
dentally or  intentionally  done  his  neighbor 
through  his  neighbor's  simplicity  or  ignorance, 
his  conscience  is  soothed  by  the  protecting 


NOT   A   SEEMON.  143 

statute.  He  has  been  annoyed  by  an  osten- 
tatious recognition  and  acknowledgment  of 
acts,  with  a  parade  of  assumed  systematic 
intentions,  when  the  real  ones  so  spontane- 
ously sprung  from  his  humanity  that  design 
or  calculation  was  impossible.  Their  intrinsic 
goodness  was  so  disparaged  and  obscured  by 
misinterpretation  and  flaunting  that  their 
promising  fruit  was  stinted  in  the  growth. 
The  sweeter  virtues,  crushed  into  life,  are 
embarrassed  by  being  displayed.  The  silent 
tear  which  attends  their  birth  drops  away  in 
shame  at  being  discovered. 

'Life,  in  the  remote  country,  is  simple, 
and  does  not  stimulate  exertion.  Wants  are 
few  and  inexpensive.  Much  money  is  not 
needed  to  get  all  we  desire.  It  is  only  when 
civilization  is  seen  at  its  centres,  where  skill 
and  taste  and  treasure  have  accumulated  incal- 
culable objects  of  beauty  and  comfort,  that  we 
apprehend  how  much  there  is  to  enjoy,  and 
how  much  is  required  to  purchase  it  all.  New 
and  extraordinary  incentives  to  wealth  are 


144  HALF   TINTS. 

awakened  by  the  exhibition  of  its  uses.  The 
wants  created  by  the  education  and  stimula- 
tion of  our  senses  and  sensations  soon  become 
exacting  and  insatiable,  and  our  efforts  to 
satisfy  them  astonish  us  by  their  continuity 
and  desperation. 

'If  an  apprehension  of  the  many  objects 
of  sensuous  and  esthetic  enjoyment  in  this  life 
makes  us  so  prodigiously  diligent  in  the  accu- 
mulation of  the  means  to  enjoy  them,  how 
much  the  more  would  an  unwavering  belief 
in  an  immortal  life  of  delight  and  progression 
make  us  diligent  in  the  acquisition  of  the  loves 
and  virtues,  without  which  we  must  lack  the 
resources  and  capacities  to  enjoy  its  beatitudes. 
As  cities  awaken  and  quicken  a  desire  for 
wealth  by  exhibiting  so  many  desirable  objects 
which  only  money  can  buy,  so  an  abiding 
belief  that  in  the  immeasurable  future  our 
enjoyment  of  its  prerogatives  and  felicities 
will  depend  upon  our  fitness  and  preparation 
for  them,  would  inspire  the  utmost  diligence 
in  laying  up  treasures  for  Heaven.  With,  the 


NOT   A   SEEMON.  145 

thought  of  a  future  existence  perpetually  pres- 
ent, and  the  belief  that  this  fleeting  life  is 
only  for  purposes  of.  discipline  and  culture, 
all  love  of  ostentation  and  applause  would 
be  precluded.  By  those  whose  lives  and  aims 
are  fitted  for  this  world  and  limited  to  it,  are 
its  rewards  and  honors  most  sought  and  es- 
teemed. The  simple  offices  and  acquisitions 
of  virtue  and  goodness,  which  make  little  sign 
and  are  ill-recognized  by  men,  win  the  smile 
which  beams  immortally.  .  i 

'As  we  live,  and  enjoy,  and  grow,  how 
content  we  should  be  to  give  up  what  we  have, 
with  a  certainty  that  hence  our  joys  and  capa- 
cities will  be  increased  and  perpetuated.  The 
primer  must  be  laid  aside  for  the  next  book  in 
the  course,  which  will: include"  it.  The  forms'- 
fall  away,  but  the  spirit  passes.  The  chaff, 
which  protected  and  rounded  the  wheat, .  is 
left  to  perish  after  the  winnowing.  Dis- 
cipline and  processes,  desiderata  'now,  if  we 
grow  at  all,  must  become  gyves.  We  must 
put  off  and  put  on,  until  all  auxiliaries .-  be- 


146  HALF   TINTS. 

come  unnecessary  under  the  guardianship  of 
the  Infallible. 

clf  we  truly  believed  and  realized  that 
here  we  begin  to  be  what  we  are  to  be  ever, 
how  absorbing  and  resourceful  life  would  be. 
How  conscientiously  and  persistently  we  would 
seek  the  good  and  avoid  the  evil.  How  suspi- 
ciously and  jealously  we  would  guard  our- 
selves against  all  which  must  perish  with  the 
body,  and  how  anxiously  cultivate  all  which 
must  survive  it.  Happiness  would  not  be 
sought  in  its  transient  forms.  Life  would  be 
appreciated  for  its  resultant  uses.  The  duty 
of  the  hour  would  be  the  duty  of  eternity. 
The  good  would  inhere.  The  present  would 
be  realized  as  the  time  to  work  in ;  and  having 
something  to  do  worth  doing,  we  should  need 
all  the  time  we  have  to  do  it  well.  The  duties 
of  to-day  faithfully  discharged,  we  would  not 
concern  ourselves  about  to-morrow.  To-mor- 
row would  be  so  far  provided  for  that  it  would 
be  anticipated  and  made  easy,  if  it  come.  Re- 
finement and  tenderness  and  excellence  would 


NOT  A   SERMON. 

result  from  fidelity  to  duty,  and  a  happiness 
would  be  established  as  serene  as  it  would  be 
unconscious.  Living  and  acting,  and  getting 
the  pleasure  and  good  of  life  in  duty,  we  should 
enjoy  a  foretaste  of  fruition  and  perpetuity.' 


XL 
H  APPINES  S. 


XI. 

HAPPINESS. 

ABOUT  midnight.  Mrs.  Allgot  lias  just 
come  in,  attended  by  her  accredited  escort, 
the  accomplished  Captain.  They  have  been 
to  the  opera,  and  have  stopped  an  hour  at  a 
French  restaurant  to  refresh  themselves.  Ele- 
gantly attired  and  faithfully  attended,  she  has 
been  the  admiration  of  all.  Her  diamonds 
sparkle,  but  do  not  outshine  her  brilliant  black 
eyes,  retouched  with  a  dazzling  lustre  by  the 
fat  oysters  and  half-bottle  of  Gold  Seal.  The 
good-humor  and  fondness  of  both  are  over- 
flowing, but  they  repress  themselves  in  good 
taste,  and  separate  politely.  Good  old  Mr. 
Allgot,  the  happy  husband  of  so  much  ra- 


152  HALF   TINTS. 

diancy,  alone  in  his  chamber  and  sweet  bed, 
has  had  three  solid  hours  of  dreamless  slum- 
ber, and  would  be  a  churl  to  complain  of  a 
little  disturbance  by  her  who  at  the  court  of 
fashion  has  conferred  upon  him  so  much  dis- 
tinction. Thoughtful  and  sympathizing,  he 
cannot  but  participate  the  pleasure  of  unlacing 
and  disrobing,  after  so  many  hours  of  tension 
and  splendor.  His  dull  ears,  if  they  hear  the 
rustling  silks,  only  echo  the  admiration  they 
have  excited,  and  he  is  less  disturbed  than  the 
many  who  envy  her.  Instead  of  the  splash- 
ing water  agitating  his  nerves,  he  feels  them 
soothed  in  the  balmy  refreshment  it  gives  to 
her  throbbing  temples.  The  powder  out  of 
her  hair,  and  robed  in  her  immaculate  linen, 
she  feels  in  every  fibre  of  her  youthful  person 
the  exquisite  joy  of  a  convalescent.  Overcome 
and  spent,  what  to  her  are  the  square  limbs 
and  knotted  joints  of  the  kind  old  man  by  her 
side  ?  In  the  needed  sleep  will  come  back  to 
her  the  caressing  kindness  of  the  Captain ; 
a  thousand  eyes  will  reflect  her  splendor ;  and 


HAPPINESS.  153 

the  generous  wine,  pervading  her  blood  with 
a  subtle  warmth,  will  lift  the  curtain  of  her 
dreams  upon  more  than  earthly  ravishment. 
A  remembered  swell  of  music  will  transport 
her  to  rapturous  heights,  and  a  white  cloud 
float  her  to  elysium.  If  her  muttered  words 
and  agitated  slumber  keep  the  old  man  awake, 
he  remembers  that  youth  is  dreamy,  and  he 
would  not  have  his  chamber  dreamless.  If 
he  grow  tired  of  the  bed  when  his  young 
darling  is  most  enamoured  of  it,  his  accus- 
tomed early  walk  will  relieve  them  both.  If 
he  move  carelessly,  in  the  dim  light  of  the 
morning,  amongst  her  splendid  robes,  his 
crushing  them  will  stir  her  less  than  the 
slightest  ordinary  contact ;  for  his  opulence 
bought  them,  and  can  buy  a  thousand,  more 
splendid.  The  soft  dawn  upon  her  mellowing 
bosom  reflects  itself  in  the  mirror  as  he  dresses 
himself,  and  his  pure  taste  discovers  only 
beauty  in  the  picture,  which  touching  her 
never  so  gently  would  only  disturb.  The 
landscape  on.  the  wall  beyond,  he  thinks, 

7* 


154  HALF   TINTS. 

is  not  more  irradiated  by  the  morning  flush 
than  her  sleeping  beauty. 

Ah,  sweet  are  the  uses  of  civility,  and  a 
rough  arrangement  society  would  be  without 
it.  Feeble  as  we  discover  ourselves  to  be,  and 
too  short-lived,  with  the  best  faculties,  to  get 
much  wisdom,  we  find  in  it  our  most  conveni- 
ent solace  at  last.  (It  may  sometimes  be  car- 
ried doubtfully  far,  as  in  the  case  of  indulgent 
old  Galba,  c  who,  having  entertained  Maecenas 
at  supper,  and  seeing  his  young  wife  cast  ten- 
der glances,  and  complot  love  by  signs,  let 
himself  sink  down  upon  his  cushion,  like  one 
in  a  profound  sleep,  to  give  opportunity  to 
their  fondling ;  which  he  himself  handsomely 
confessed ;  for  at  the  same  time  a  servant 
making  bold  to  filch  a  vase  that  stood  upon 
the  table,  he  frankly  cried :  Hold,  you  rogue. 
Do  you  not  see  that  I  sleep  only  for  Mae- 
cenas ? ')  The  apparently  incongruous  com- 
panionships we  sometimes  see  must  find  their 
bond  of  union  in  a  generous  civility.  Some 
cynic  has  said  there  could  be  no  happy  mar- 


HAPPINESS.  155 

riage  but  betwixt  a  blind  wife  and  a  deaf 
husband,  which  the  bliss  of  this  couple  dis- 
proves. Their  liberality  forbids  them  seeing 
or  hearing  what  might  excite  distrust  or  jeal- 
ousy. His  experience  and  age  have  taught 
him  the  folly  of  monopoly.  Her  beauty  and 
youth,  so  generally  acknowledged,  have  taught 
her  the  meanness  of  selfishness.  '  Small  is  the 
worth  of  beauty  from  the  light  retired.'  She 
must  'suffer  herself  to  be  desired,  and  not 
blush  so  to  be  admired.'  He  rejoices  in  his 
ability  to  load  her  with  laces  and  jewels,  and 
she  also.  His  frailty  has  taught  him  humility, 
and  he  is  glad  of  his  wealth  as  a  resource  for 
her  affections.  It  was  natural,  in  the  fulness 
of  his  possessions,  and  her  ardor  to  share  them, 
for  him  to  forget  the  trifle  of  manhood.  Some- 
thing is  sure  to  be  forgotten,  even  by  the 
wisest,  in  the  tumult  of  the  tender  passion. 
Tithonus,  you  know,  in  love  with  Eo^,  asked 
to  be  made  immortal,  that  he  might  love  her 
forever,  but  forgot,  in  his  ardor,  to  ask  the 
little  essential  of  perennial  youth.  Finding 


156  HALF   TINTS. 

himself  maimed,  and  left  '  to  dwell  in  presence 
of  immortal  youth,  immortal  age  beside  im- 
mortal youth,  and  all  he  was  in  ashes,'  and 
deploring  that  the  gods  could  not  recall  the 
terrible  gift,  asked  to  be  changed,  and  in  pity 
was,  into  a  grasshopper. 

The  worldly  philosophy  of  Balzac,  that 
there  are  few  happy  couples  but  couples  of 
four,  if  ever  true,  would  appear  to  be,  in  a 
certain  sense,  in  this  instance.  The  old  gen- 
tleman has  formed  many  attachments,  begin- 
ning with  his  teens  and  increasing  with  his 
years,  which  are  now  so  essentially  a  part  of 
him  that  existence  would  be  dreariness  without 
them.  The  object  of  an  early  passion,  living 
in  the  next  street,  for  many  years  the  wife 
of  an  India  merchant,  whom  he  every  day 
visits,  and  whose  society  revives  every  pleasant 
memory,  may  be  counted  the  first  and  ten- 
derest.  With  her,  he  is  oblivious  of  the  events 
of  fifty  years,  and  lives  over  again  the  halcyon 
period  when  the  world  was  best  and  wisest. 
His  young  hopes  blossom  again  in  retrospec- 


HAPPINESS.  157 

tion.  If  his  relations  with  her  be  marked  by 
a  touch  of  tenderness,  it  is  but  the  response  of 
a  thousand  memories,  and  is  too  sacred  ever  to 
be  impure.  A  jest  upon  it  would  give  him  a 
wound  which  nothing  could  heal.  Its  enjoy- 
ment is  the  compensation  for  unnumbered  ills. 
Any  thing  may  be  referred  to  but  that ;  that 
never  unkindly.  Too  hallowed  the  cherished 
intercourse  for  defence  or  discussion.  Another 
of  his  attachments  is  an  old  friend,  with  whom, 
in  early  years,  he  was  associated  in  prosperous 
business.  "With  him,  the  schemes  and  perils 
of  trade  are  revived,  and  he  is  reminded  of  his 
energies  and  successes.  Every  crisis  in  their 
joint  enterprises  is  again  and  again  worked 
through,  and  every  difficulty  seems  ever  as 
hard  as  when  their  master  minds  and  wills 
overcame  it.  Reviewing  any  one  of  their 
achievements  the  thousandth  time,  they  forget 
their  infirmities,  and  walk  the  room  with  the 
tread  of  conquest  and  defiance.  The  old  fire 
and  'purpose  flash  out  of  their  eyes,  and  all 
obstacles,  so  petty  and  contemptible,  melt 


158  HALF   TINTS. 

away.  Rejuvenated  by  this  heroic  process, 
i  Old  Allgot '  is  not  to  be  despised,  nor  his 
fellow-champion  either.  If  the  latter  be  a 
little  disagreeable  on  account  of  unfortunate 
habits,  he  is  not  to  be  disparaged  nor  offended. 
So  great  a  resource  as  his  society  'twould  be 
perilous  to  obstruct.  It  must  be  permitted  as 
often  and  as  long  as  either  elect,  without  ques- 
tioning or  impatience.  And  his  ailments,  too, 
are  attachments,  which  he  cannot  quit  if  he 
would.  Formed  late  in  life,  long  after  the  ten- 
derer ties,  they  are  just  as  tenacious  and  exact- 
ing. A  lumbago,  which  so  long  has  affection- 
ately hugged  his  loins,  claims  much  of  his  time 
and  attention,  and  much  gentle  manipulation 
and  consideration  are  required  to  soothe  it. 
And  an  asthma  has  crept  into  his  throat,  mod- 
ulating his  voice,  and  making  his  respiration 
too  sensible  to  himself  and  to  others.  As  a 
profligate  son,  they  must  be  endured,  and  a 
civil  and  accommodating  treatment  is  neces- 
sary to  make  them  tolerable.  These  and  other 
peculiar  ties  and  affections,  requiring  so  much 


HAPPINESS.  159 

civility  and  consideration,  have  in  turn  made 
him  considerate  and  civil.  Especially  have 
they  made  him  so  to  his  blooming  wife.  And 
he  has  discovered  with  pleasure  that  about  in 
proportion  to  his  liberality  and  license  are  her 
patience  and  kindness.  Her  unembarrassed 
relations  with  the  prudent  Captain,  instead  of 
diminishing  her  love,  have  increased  it.  Be- 
fore the  pleasant  acquaintance  was  formed, 
she  seemed  at  times  a  little  indifferent  to  her 
husband ;  but  now  her  fondness  for  him  is 
always  demonstrative.  Under  such  circum- 
stances he  would  be  ungrateful  to  deny  her 
any  thing.  She  is  too  brilliant  to  shine  for 
him  only.  The  splendor  of  her  charms  would 
pale  if  limited  to  the  twilight  of  decline.  Her 
volatility  and  vitality  would  be  sure  to  weary 
under  the  continued  weight  of  his  heaviness. 
The  Captain,  for  his  fidelity  and  circumspec- 
tion, commands  his  admiration  and  gratitude. 
He  is  delighted  that  his  lovely  wife  has  found 
so  suitable  and  trusty  a  friend.  So  nearly  of 
an  age,  and  so  much  alike  in  tastes  and  tern- 


160  HALF   TINTS. 

perament,  they  seem  inevitably  to  have  corne 
together.  Her  better  nature  is  cultivated  by 
the  Captain's  many  good  offices,  and  her 
civility  and  tenderness  to  her  husband  are  a 
thousand  times  increased  by  the  repeated 
indulgence  of  her  gushing  humors. 

[You  remember  the  lines  of  Waller,  On 
One  Married  to  an  Old  Man,  which  we  laughed 
over  before'we  became  philosophers : 

Since  thou  wouldst  needs  (bewitched  by  some  ill  charms), 

Be  buried  in  those  monumental  arms, 

All  we  can  wish  is — May  that  earth  be  light 

Upon  thy  tender  limbs  ;  and  so  good-night.] 


XII. 

POOR    BODIES. 


XII. 

POOR    BODIES. 

IN  these  material  times,  when  every  de- 
mand is  supplied,  the  fashionable  doctor  is  an 
indispensable  luxury.  I  encounter  him  often, 
in  halls  and  drawing-rooms.  He  lives  in  a 
palace,  and  fares  sumptuously.  His  carriage 
at  any  house  goes  far  to  fix  the  rank  of  the 
occupant.  He  is  not  to  perform  miracles,  as 
the  world  is  now  too  wise  to  expect  the  mirac- 
ulous. The  human  machine  is  admitted  to  be 
frail,  and  destined  to  go  to  pieces.  The  house 
of  clay  is  only  to  be  kept  in  such  repair  as  to 
be  presentable  and  comfortably  habitable  till 
abandoned.  It  was  not  made  to  resist  earth- 
quakes nor  time.  Only  the  every-day  storms 


164:  HALF   TINTS. 

and  ills  may  be  averted  or  cured.  The  one 
great  shock  or  poison  which  shatters  or  rots 
the  structure,  the  wisest  cannot  forefend  nor 
baffle.  Therapeutics,  unfortunately,  is  not  so 
exact  as  anatomy.  Bones  and  veins  and  mus- 
cles, the  same  in  all  men,  once  discovered,  are 
facts,  and,  with  the  aid  of  chloroform,  the  med- 
ical carpenter  may  cut  and  saw  his  poor  fellow 
with  certainty.  But  the  million  influences  of 
climate  and  appetite  and  passion  upon  these 
human  bodies,  as  varied  by  predispositions  and 
habits  and  ambitions  as  they  are  numerous, 
are  past  finding  out  mathematically,  and  some- 
times may  only  be  guessed  at,  as  the  turns  of 
the  stock-market,  or  the  whims  of  insanity. 
From  the  beginning,  notwithstanding,  the  best 
intellects  have  been  worn  and  wasted  to  dis- 
cover symptoms  and  invent  remedies.  In  their 
zeal  and  preoccupation,  pondering  the  possible, 
they  naturally  overlooked  the  inevitable.  In 
their  ardor  and  sincerity,  what  wonder  that 
they  attempted  to  fasten  by  terms  and  theories 
what  was  too  illusive  for  apprehension  without 


POOR  BODIES.  165 

them,  .and  what  wonder  that  they  founded,  and 
dying  men  patronized,  schools  to  utilize  and 
perpetuate  it.  Upon  a  sea  of  speculation,  in 
doubt  and  darkness,  with  only  a  few  obscure 
truths  bundled  into  theories,  they  confidently 
worked  to  conclusions,  but  with  as  little  real 
knowledge  of  the  mystery  they  sought  to  ex- 
plore as  the  squirrel  displays  of  navigation, 
who,  upon  a  bit  of  wood,  with  his  tail  spread, 
floats  before  the  wind.  Down  the  ages,  with 
the  drift  of  superstition,  have  descended  the 
little  fragments  of  fact,  till  the  accumulation 
is  voluminous.  Every  school  of  medicine  has 
its  ^philosophers  and  zealots;  and  of  its  nu- 
merous practitioners,  those  who  do  not  defend 
it  with  ardor  are  exceptional.  The  system 
they  have  espoused  must  be  right  till  aban- 
doned. Wedded  to  mercury,  cold  water,  or 
infinitesimals,  they  are  sworn  systematically 
to  prescribe,  whatever  the  accident  or  ex- 
tremity. "Wholly  committed  and  in  earnest, 
professional  pride  becomes  an  essential  of 
personality,  and  a  certain  symptom  demands 


166  HALF   TINTS. 

a  certain  remedy,  or  risks  the  character.  A 
dose  to  the  grain  is  defended  by  the  proud 
physician  as  the  honor  of  his  household,  and 
the  sturdiness  of  opinion  which  such  cham- 
pionship of  minutiae  is  apt  to  beget  becomes 
as  often  inconvenient  as  disagreeable.  Such 
a  man  will  not  be  trifled  with.  Sincere,  and 
devoted  to  his  calling,  he  will  not  accommo- 
date himself  to  pretences  nor  whims.  A  pro- 
fessional call  means  sober  business,  and  his 
sense  of  duty  commands  candor.  If  indolence 
or  indulgence  or  vice  be  the  cause  of  ailment, 
he  frankly  announces  and  characterizes  it. 
The  cherished  habits,  appetites,  or  desires, 
must  be  abandoned  before  he  can  begin  a 
cure  of  their  result.  Trained  to  directness  of 
expression  as  well  as  of  thought,  he  can  hardly 
describe  their  effect  upon  the  body  without 
suggesting  their  blight  inevitably  and  forever 
upon  the  character.  A  faithful  physician  he 
believes  should  be  an  honest  man,  and  conceal- 
ment or  assumed  ignorance  he  will  not  admit 
inseparable  from  the  art  of  healing.  He  will 


POOR   BODIES.  167 

continue  to  visit  a-foot,  and  live  in  a  hired 
house,  rather  than  be  rich  at  the  expense  of 
integrity  and  self-respect. 

That  interesting  character  to  whom  I  refer 
is  of  another  sort  and  purpose.  Consulting 
only  his  convictions,  he  might  belong  to  any 
of  the  schools,  or  none  of  them,  confessedly. 
His  views  are  material  and  commercial,  and 
he  is  willing  that  the  money  his  profession 
brings  him  should  measure  his  ability.  Strong 
beliefs  would  be  inconvenient,  and  might  mount 
him  upon  a  hobby.  Shrewdly  occupied  with 
other  people's  hobbies,  one  of  his  own  would 
be  sure  to  embarrass  him.  The  thing  of  all 
things  he  would  avoid  is  a  conviction  which 
could  make  him  dogmatic.  Free  from  attack 
through  having  nothing  abstract  to  defend,  he 
readily  secures  the  patronage  of  every  folly 
*by  not  opposing  it.  Cognizant  of  the  higher 
impulses  of  humanity,  he  does  not  forget  that 
but  one  of  many  is  controlled  by  them,  and 
his  vigilance  for  the  main  chance  adapts  him 
to  the  multitude.  The  patrons  of  his  choice 


168  HALF   TINTS. 

would  be  above  the  average  of  men  if  he  could 
have  enough  of  them ;  but  as  society  at  large 
will  not  be  elevated  to  his  standard  of  fancy, 
he  contents  and  secures  himself  by  accepting 
it  as  it  is.  He  prefers  to  pitch  himself  to  the 
common  rather  than  the  moral  sense,  that 
being  the  more  apprehensible  and  merchant- 
able. Souls  that  are  regular  and  strong  in 
themselves,  he  believes,  with  Montaigne,  are 
so  rare  as  not  justly  to  have  name  nor  place 
among  men,  and  considers  the  time  nearly  lost 
in  endeavoring  to  please  them.  Besides,  to 
attain  and  maintain  their  altitude  of  reason 
would  require  a  hard  and  constant  effort  of 
intellect,  and  would  unfit  him  for  close  obser- 
vation and  appropriation  of  the  instincts  and 
artifices  of  the  general  level,  where  the  genius 
of  the  shopkeeper  is  the  standard.  The  great 
are  exceptional,  and  may  not  easily  be  turned 
to  account,  while  the  ordinary  are  everywhere, 
and  ever  in  market.  The  little  things  of  life 
engross  it,  and  with  them  he  must  deal.  Every- 
body is  to  have  a  last  sickness,  but  he  would 


POOR   BODIES.  169 

prefer  'never  to  have  a  patient  in  that  extrem- 
ity. The  numerous  little  ailments  which  annoy 
life  more  than  they  endanger  it,  but  which 
steadily  swell  the  doctor's  bank  balance,  are 
easily  manageable  by  simple  remedies,  if  in- 
deed they  need  medical  treatment  at  all.  To 
these  his  arts  are  adapted,  to  be  estimated 
and  perpetuated  in  running  accounts.  If  only 
so  fortunate  as  to  be  able  to  confine  his  prac- 
tice to  them,  the  life  of  every  patient  would 
attest  his  ability.  Alas,  he  cannot  always 
dally  with  the  trifling;  he  must  sometimes 
face  the  terrible;  but  in  the  dreadful  extrem- 
ity he  finds  safety  in  counsel.  Only  sharing 
the  responsibility,  his  reputation  cannot  be 
much  endangered.  No  matter  if  the  dying 
man  still  trusts  in  him ;  the  poor  fellow  has 
received  the  last  visit ;  the  living  friends  who 
mrround  are  to  be  retained  as  patrons;  and 
might  be  fatal  if  he  alone  were  remembered 
dth  the  calamity. 

So  perfect  a  type  of  his  class,  Jack,  is  this 
man,  it  were  necessary  you  should  see  him 


170  HALF   TINTS. 

often,  and  know  him  as  well  as  any  one  may, 
justly  to  admire  him.  If  you  were  here  I 
could  almost  wish  you  a  little  sick  to  secure 
you  a  close  observation.  To  know  him  as 
your  friends  know  you,  no  man  can ;  but  most 
persons  who  meet  him  think  they  know  him 
perfectly  at  once.  Devoting  himself  to  the 
study  and  use  of  their  weaknesses,  he  acquires 
a  peculiar  influence  over  them.  As  a  hunter, 
he  pursues  his  game  with  a  full  pack  of  pas- 
sions and  intuitions  trained  to  his  will.  Men, 
he  reasons,  are  indolent  and  ambitious,  with 
instincts  and  impulses  ever  ready  to  supply 
the  lack  of  labor  and  exalted  purposes,  and 
unawares  they  become  artful  and  mean. 
Habitually  deceiving,  they  expect  deception, 
and  prefer  it.  The  skeleton  truth  is  distaste- 
ful. Dressed  according  to  mode,  it  is  only 
presentable.  His  study  is  to  find  out  what 
will  suit,  and  to  adapt  himself  accordingly. 
He  takes  the  hue  of  whatever  is  contiguous. 
He  dances  with  them  that  dance ;  puffs  pre- 
sumption ;  apologizes  for  ignorance ;  excuses 


POOE   BODIES. 

hypocrisy ;  fawns  to  avarice ;  applauds  every 
device  of  ugliness  to  entrap  beauty ;  listens  to 
gossip  in  a  manner  to  excite  new  wonder; 
winks  at  slander  with  a  kindly  smirk ;  gives  a 
roguish  twinkle  at  fashionable  pruriency  and 
villany ;  swells  his  cheeks  expanding  evan- 
escent bubbles  which  complacency  and  pride 
have  invented  to  conceal  their  emptiness ;  in 
a  word,  is  ever  every  thing  to  everybody,  and 
never  himself.  He  is  too  well  drilled  to  fear 
an  exposure  of  his  semblances.  He  scents  up 
characteristics,  and  assumes  them  so  well,  it 
may  be  said  he  improves  them  in  the  acting. 
An  adept  in  counterfeiting,  he  is  quick  to 
detect  counterfeits;  and  while  his  coin  is  so 
perfect  as  always  to  pass,  society  can  never  im- 
pose upon  him  a  baubee  which  is  not  genuine. 
If  thrown  with  violence  against  angularity, 
his  india-rubber  character  never  receives  a 
wound  in  the  collision.  The  only  individual 
he  encounters  to  whom  he  cannot  conform 
himself  is  that  fortunately  rare  nuisance  of 
well-bred  society,  an  artless  man,  with  a  clear 


172  HALF   TENTS. 

eye  for  the  truth,  and  a  tongue  to  utter  it; 
who  is  so  indelicate  and  uncivil  as  not  to  con- 
fine himself  to  representations  on  the  stage  of 
life,  but  obtrudes  into  the  green-room,  and  sees 
the  faults  and  follies  of  the  actors,  and  the 
difficulties  and  miseries  of  rehearsal ;  who 
strips  philosophy  of  cant;  poetry  of  extrava- 
gance ;  painting  of  unnatural  tints ;  dogmatism 
of  ignorance ;  elegance  of  mockery ;  distinc- 
tion of  props ;  diplomacy  of  ambition ;  in  fine, 
sees  society  as  it  is,  undraped  by  the  fictions 
which  pass  for  society  itself.  Such  a  man  to 
him  is  fearful.  In  such  a  presence,  his  smiles 
are  ghastly,  and  his  sinuous  tongue  shrinks 
into  coil,  and  only  hisses. 

To  a  philosopher,  like  yourself,  who  could 
observe  without  impatience,  so  perfect  an 
achievement  in  art  would  be  pleasing.  I 
think  of  you  always  when  he  makes  my  wife 
a  visit.  Women,  you  know,  even  the  best  of 
them,  will  have  their  way  in  some  things ; 
always  in  the  choice  of  a  physician.  The 
points  of  merit  must  be  invisible  to  our  reason. 


POOR   BODIES.  173 

I  will  not  think  my  wife  so  weak  a  creature  as 
to  be  charmed  by  his  graces ;  she  thinks  too 
much  of  me  to  believe  in  them  wholly.  His 
rich  equipage  and  faultless  manners  cannot  be 
all  that  she  sees.  There  must  be  a  soul  of 
sympathy  or  ken  of  wisdom  somewhere  or 
somehow  visible,  or  her  fine  sense  has  failed 
her  for  once.  One  scene  I  shall  remember 
while  memory  of  her  remains  to  me.  The 
poor  sufferer  had  been  pulled  and  torn  by 
pain  all  night,  and  in  the  morning,  when  the 
paroxysm  left  her,  she  was  exhausted.  Feebly 
but  often  she  looked  at  the  clock,  anxiously 
counting  the  minutes  till  the  doctor's  arrival. 
At  length  he  came,  and  his  presence  seemed 
a  benediction.  His  confidential  manner  and 
sublime  tact  compounded  a  remedy  above  the 
skill  of  the  apothecary.  His  few  words,  less 
interrogative  than  magnetic,  seemed  to  reach 
the  source  of  anguish,  and  run  through  the 
nerves  with  vitalizing  energy.  His  hand 
touched  her  temple  and  caressed  a  pitiful  lock 
as  gently  as  could  sunshine  or  zephyr.  Not  a 


1Y4  HALF   TENTS. 

word  of  drugs ;  but  a  few  well-chosen  ones  of 
to-morrow  and  rejoicing  promise.  Closing  the 
west  window  a  little,  and  opening  the  south- 
ern as  much,  the  air  was  of  a  softer  climate. 
Hopeful  and  composed,  with  a  sweet  torpor 
upon  her  eyelids,  he  left  her— as  unconsciously 
to  her  as  her  consciousness.  For  three  hours 
she  slept  like  a  baby,  and  awoke  a  new  spirit. 
The  scene  for  some  reason  reminded  me,  and 
always  reminds  me,  of  an  old  experience; 
perhaps  they  may  illustrate  each  other.  Not 
at  all  well,  I  could  not  improve  on  account 
of  business  anxieties.  My  first  venture,  upon 
the  success  of  which  my  whole  future  seemed 
to  depend,  had  reached  a  crisis,  and  my  emo- 
tions were  in  a  tumult,  and  had  been  for  days. 
All  my  energies  had  been  expended  to  secure 
a  favorable  result,  and  I  could  only  wait.  ]S"ot 
that  I  needed  his  skill,  but  to  be  occupied  for 
a  few  long  minutes,  I  had  dropped  into  the 
easy-chair  of  the  village  barber  and  yielded 
to  his  pleasant  manipulations.  Unexpectedly 
and  suddenly  I  fell  into  a  profound  sleep,  and 


POOE   BODIES.  175 

when  I  awoke,  an  hour  afterward,  the  faithful 
and  kindly  son  of  Ham  was  still  at  work,  but 
with  a  fan— meantime  having  gently  lifted  me, 
chair  and  all,  between  the  open  door  and  win- 
dow, and  disposed  my  legs  and  arms  for  the 
long  forgetfulness.  Ever  since  the  world  has 
looked  brighter.  The  scheme  of  business 
worked  well ;  but  its  failure,  and  all  the  skill 
or  ridicule  of  learned  doctors  could  never  have 
made  me  forget  or  underrate  the  thoughtful 
and  feeling  barber. 

Men  and  women,  Jack,  are  poor  creatures, 
and  do  not  care  to  be  stared  at  through  micro- 
scopes. Their  hearts  sore,  and  faculties  weary, 
they  want  to  be  humored  and  petted.  In 
every  man's  heart  are  there  not  apartments 
forever  locked,  the  keys  forever  lost,  into  which 
he  himself  never  enters  but  by  a  skeleton? 
The  central  motive  which  has  harmonized  the 
efforts  of  a  life,  and  the  misfortune  which  has 
tempered  it,  are  not  to  be  hunted  with  the 
realist's  dark-lantern,  nor  spitted  for  scientific 
scrutiny.  Personality  is  within  the  life  as  the 


176  HALF   TINTS. 

world  sees  it,  and  not  to  be  invaded  if  all  the 
resources  of  that  life  can  protect  it.  Of  this 
no  one  can  be  more  perfectly  aware  than  the 
fashionable  doctor.  To  appearances  he  is  most 
considerate  and  respectful,  while  with  the  con- 
cealed and  unutterable  he  makes  merchandise. 
A  large  proportion,  and  the  most  substantial, 
of  his  patients,  for  instance,  are  only  growing 
old,  but  they  submit  to  be  drugged  and  drugged, 
rather  than  once  to  be  told  the  wholesome 
truth.  The  slight  weaknesses  and  aches,  as  nat- 
ural as  gray  hairs  and  dim  eyesight,  pride  of  life 
and  the  physician's  arts  dignify  into  illnesses. 
Thin  locks  and  spectacles  are  natural  enough, 
and  well  enough,  and  rather  becoming ;  but 
flattening  muscles  and  cooling  circulation  are 
results  of  over-work  or  imprudence,  and  may 
be  restored  to  roundness  and  comfortable  tem- 
perature. The  doctor's  wise  prescription  is 
higher  living  and  heavier  flannel,  with  pow- 
ders and  drops  now  and  then  as  alteratives 
and  tonics,  and  just  soon  enough,  to  a  visit, 
he  conducts  the  delicate  case,  as  they  say,  to 


POOR   BODIES. 


m 


a  favorable  issue.  The  air  of  southern  Europe 
is  recommended  if  his  patient's  patience  seems 
failing,  or  if,  as  the  real  case  may  be,  the  ill 
taste  of  a  stubborn  husband  is  to  be  corrected. 
Many  of  his  patients,  who  are  given  to  gayety 
and  irregular  hours,  are  too  frail  to  bear  chil- 
dren, and  his  bare  hint  of  the  fact  is  of  profit 
to  the  monster  in  a  palace  whose  specialty 
is  such  cases.  Expressionless  eyes  and  dul- 
ness  would  contrast  with  diamonds  and  thin 
dresses,  and  stimulants  in  every  form  are  sug- 
gested to  supply  the  needed  lustre  and  spright- 
liness,  and  complete  the  harmony.  Small 
potions  at  first  are  sufficient;  and  if  gradual 
increase  of  quantity  result  unfortunately,  the 
misfortune  is  disease,  to  be  treated  by  a  still 
further  increase  of  the  cause  as  a  remedy.  If 
the  public  voice  be  silenced  by  the  presence  of 
crime  in  so  many  households ;  if  brothels  spring 
up  palatially  in  desirable  streets  ;  if  hospitals 
multiply  to  exhaust  the  public  purse ;  the  fash- 
ionable doctor,  who  is  the  genius  and  patron 
of  them  all,  is  secure  in  hjis  Ijame  and  opulence. 

8* 


XIII. 
POOR    SOULS. 


XIII. 

POOR    SOULS. 

BUT  the  creature-comfort  of  all — the  sweet 
meat  of  the  turtle — ripened  and  seasoned  to 
the  appetite  of  worldliness — is  the  fashionable 
parson.  Prized  according  to  price,  as  every 
other  luxury,  he  is  solace  and  nourishment  to 
the  fortunate  who  can  purchase.  In  all  the 
variety  of  his  genus,  he  is  the  rarity  and  per- 
fection. 

The  poor  have  the  gospel  preached  to  them 
according  to  their  ways  and  wants,  and  taste 
is  less  a  requisite  with  them  than  earnestness. 
Their  c  school  of  wisdom '  being  the  '  school 
of  misery,'  they  are  prepared  for  honesty,  even 
if  it  goes  to  the  sources  of  badness,  and  are 


182  HALF   TINTS. 

not  disappointed  if  it  grates  as  it  goes.  Their 
lives  being  simple  and  transparent,  in  any  soft 
or  ingenious  disguise  to  cover  or  excuse  self- 
ishness, they  suspect  deceit  or  cowardice. 
Life  has  been  too  much  in  earnest,  and  every 
little  want  of  it  too  much  a  fact,  to  let  them 
long  or  very  far  from  its  realities.  Every 
muscle  and  pore  has  too  habitually  paid  the 
price  of  every  necessity  to  permit  them  igno- 
rance of  intrinsic  values.  If  frugality  in  them 
has  been  a  '  substitute  for  ambition,'  it  has 
taught  them  to  esteem  humanity.  If  sacrifice 
has  put  a  high  value  upon  their  little  accumu- 
lations, dependence  has  taught  them  a  will- 
ingness to  share  them.  The  Saviour,  in  the 
midst  of  the  multitude,  saw  the  poor  widow 
making  her  way  to  the  treasury  to  deposit  her 
two  mites—4  all  that  she  had,  even  all  her 
living.'  The  lifting  eye  of  thankfulness,  drop- 
ping a  tear  when  lifted,  is  easily  fixed  upon 
the  Throne,  at  whose  right  hand  there  is  ful- 
ness forever.  To  the  broken-hearted  and  pen- 
itent, graces  of  speech  but  obscure,  and  strong 


POOR   SOULS.  183 

figures  weaken.  To  them,  as  to  poor  Yorick, 
to  preach,  to  show  the  extent  of  the  preacher's 
reading,  or  the  subtleties  of  his  wit,  tinselled 
over  with  a  few  words  which  glitter,  but  con- 
vey little  light  and  less  warmth,  is  a  dishonest 
use  of  the  poor  single  half  hour  in  a  week 
which  is  put  in  his  hands ;  'tis  not  preaching 
the  gospel,  but  himself.  They  would  rather 
have  five  words  directed  point-blank  to  the 
heart.  To  them,  language,  as  every  other 
help,  is  so  limited  to  necessity,  that  in  express- 
ing a  want  they  as  little  think  of  the  words 
as  of  the  atmosphere  by  which  they  see.  A 
good  word  and  kind  hand,  offered  in  fellow- 
ship and  fraternity,  will  do  more  to  ease  the 
heavy  burden  and  widen  the  narrow  road, 
than  all  the  arts  of  rhetoric.  Ever  consciously 
dependent,  they  but  the  more  securely  trust 
to  guidance,  and  esteem  this  hard  life  an  ad- 
vantage if  it  but  keep  them  in  the  way  to  a 
better.  Misfortune  and  penury,  driven  into 
side-streets  and  obscurity,  are  warmed  by  the 
sun,  and  specially  blest.  The  little  mission 


184:  HALF   TINTS. 

church  is  the  temple  of  the  New  Jerusalem. 
The  best  viands  of  the  beggar  are  the  offal  of 
excess.  The  last  picking  is  sweetest,  being 
nearest  the  bone.  Opulence,  which  denies 
itself  nothing,  feels  independent,  and  trusts  in 
its  ability  to .  supply  itself  with  every  thing. 
Indigence,  which  has  nothing,  is  grateful  for 
any  thing.  Plenty  is  full-handed,  and  feels  it 
can  make  its  own  terms.  Poverty  reaches  an 
empty  hand  to  God,  and  is  so  near  the  Giver 
as  to  get  and  realize  all  the  good  of  the  gift. 

A  thousand  times  you  have  read  The  De- 
serted Tillage,  and  as  often  turned  back  to  read 
again  that  best  description  in  literature  of  a 
good  minister.  If  enough  like  him  had  lived 
upon  the  earth  to  preach  all  the  sermons,  and 
solemnize  all  the  marriages,  and  baptize  all  the 
children,  and  compose  all  the  loved  ones  in  their 
last  sleep,  what  a  different  world  this  would  be. 

A  man  he  was  to  all  the  country  dear ; 

And  passing  rich  with  forty  pounds  a  year. 

Kemote  from  towns  he  ran  his  godly  race, 

Nor  e'er  had  changed,  nor  wished  to  change,  his  place ; 


POOK    SOULS.  185 

Unpractised  he  to  fawn,  or  seek  for  power 
By  doctrines  fashioned  to  the  varying  hour. 
Far  other  aims  his  heart  had  learned  to  prize — 
More  skilled  to  raise  the  wretched  than  to  rise. 

At  church,  with  meek  and  unaffected  grace, 
His  looks  adorned  the  venerable  place ; 
Truth  from  his  lips  prevailed  with  double  sway, 
And  fools  who  came  to  scoff  remained  to  pray. 

To  relieve  the  wretched  was  his  pride, 
And  even  his  failings  leaned  to  virtue's  side — 
But  in  his  duty,  prompt  at  every  call, 
He  watched  and  wept,  he  prayed  and  felt  for  all : 
And,  as  a  bird  each  fond  endearment  tries 
To  tempt  its  new-fledged  offspring  to  the  skies, 
Hex  tried  each  art,  reproved  each  dull  delay, 
Allured  to  brighter  worlds,  and  led  the  way. 

You  and  I  are  both  old  enough  to  remem- 
ber those  heroes  in  the  ministry,  who  went 
with  the  axe  and  civilization  into  the  forests ; 
who  climbed  mountains,  swam  rivers,  and 
fought  savages  and  wild  beasts  and  hunger, 
to  carry  the  Word  to  the  careless  or  erring 
or  wretched  in  every  cabin.  How  different, 
think  you,  were  they,  and  are  their  successors 


186  HALF   TINTS. 

generally,  from  the  petted  favorite  of  a  rich 
church  in  an  opulent  city,  whose  membership 
and  attendants  sail  the  dizzying  maelstrom  of 
fashion,  and  move  omnipotently  in  the  mys- 
teries of  markets  and  corporations.  The  old 
metal  of  orthodoxy,  in  the  same  tone  and 
measure  for  ages,  has  hammered  out  impres- 
sively: '  Saved  by  grace — saved  by  grace — 
saved  by  grace ; '  but  the  full  chime  in  the 
splendid  temple,  in  tones  agreeable  to  ears 
accustomed  to  melody,  liberally  varies  it : 
4  Taste — taste — saved  by  taste — saved  by  taste.' 
The  occupant  of  the  carved  pulpit,  'whose 
wants  are  only  imaginary,  kneels  upon  cush- 
ions of  velvet,  and  thanks  gracious  Heaven  for 
having  made  the  circumstances  of  all  mankind 
so  extremely  happy.'  Material  demands  upon 
him  being  paid  by  checks  upon  his  banker,  he 
is  profoundly  ignorant  of  the  petty  shifts  of 
the  multitude.  Here  and  there,  in  the  pews 
nearest  the  pulpit,  repose  in  fresh  raiment  and 
elegance,  representatives  of  every  institution 
of  finance  and  commerce,  and  their  joint  pos- 


POOR   SOULS.  187 

sessions  impress  him  with  the  fulness  of  benefi- 
cence. To  illustrate  his  theme,  he  is  not 
limited  to  average  experience,  but  is  expected 
to  range  beyond  and  above  it.  He  is  under- 
stood to  know  the  world  in  an  enlarged  way ; 
and  if  his  figures  or  examples  suggest  the 
successes  or  power  of  his  hearers,  their  com- 
placency is  stimulated  if  their  hearts  are  not 
softened.  He  is  not  to  shock  by  an  exposure 
of  subtlety  which  circumvents,  or  combination 
which  oppresses,  but  to  soothe  by  a  glittering 
exhibition  of  ends  and  attainments.  The  pos- 
session of  money,  in  whatever  prodigious  quan- 
tity, is  not  to  be  questioned,  but  only  the  love 
of  it.  A  little  ingenuity  will  comfort  the 
possessor  by  suggesting  his  expenditures,  and 
make  him  for  the  time  being  as  conspicuous 
in  the  sanctuary  as  his  equipage  makes  him  in 
the  avenue.  Wretches,  in  degradation  and 
sores,  are  not  to  be  exposed  to  eyes  accus- 
tomed to  beauty  and  plenitude,  but  the  great 
establishment  provided  for  them  is  displayed 
and  admired  exhaustingly  in  all  the  terms  of 


188  HALF   TINTS. 

descriptive  architecture.  The  rheumy  mendi- 
cant is  at  home  in  the  beautiful  hospital, 
happy  with  his  fellows,  and  generous  taxation, 
not  importunity,  sustains  him.  Cases  of  indi- 
vidual suffering  are  covered  from  view  by  the 
general  provision,  the  sight  of  which  would 
only  disgust  or  humiliate.  Discipline  turns 
the  key,  and  the  tract  society  preaches  by 
assortment  in  bundles.  Reduced  gentility, 
the  only  respectable  wretchedness,  too  proud 
for  the  mission,  and  too  helpless  to  risk  soli- 
tude, is  not  forbidden  the  temple,  but  fills  a 
corner  and  enjoys  patronage.  A  smiling  or 
waving  welcome  is  generously  paid  in  conde- 
scension. Self-sacrifice  a  habit,  the  means  of 
grace  are  cheap  when  purchased  by  obeisance. 
Abasement,  to  the  proud,  is  so  allied  with 
humility,  that  the  hungry  soul  is  nourished 
by  it  and  exalted.  The  old  path  is  pleasant, 
and  the  old  company  solacing,  even  if  trailing 
behind  at  a  respectful  distance.  The  bruised 
heart  seems  most  at  home  with  those  who 
know  its  bruises.  Woe  of  every  sort  needs  a 


POOR    SOULS.  189 

certain  ear  to  hear  it,  and  will  utter  itself  to 
such,  if  but  to  be  pitied.  The  light  of  dia- 
monds is  most  coveted  by  those  who  once 
reigned  in  its  splendor.  But  for  these  poor 
ones  are  not  the  ministrations  of  the  beneficed 
^  divine  adapted.  His  tones  are  pitched  to  the 
ears  of  those  they  beseech,  to  whom  he  owes 
all,  and  from  whom  he  expects  even  more. 
Their  courtly  presence  he  has  enjoyed  till 
their  moral  atmosphere  has  become  his  own, 
and  his  passions  flow  much  in  the  same  cur- 
rents with  theirs.  To  apply  Massillon,  <  he  is 
naturally  attentive  to  refrain  from  every  thing 
calculated  to  make  them  melancholy  ;  eager 
to  conciliate  their  affections,  and  make  them 
pleased  with  him ;  careful  to  speak  to  them 
only  the  language  of  peace,  confidence,  and 
mercy ;  and  instead  of  frightening  them  on 
account  of  their  sins,  encourages  them,  and 
in  his  mildness  furnishes  them  a  resource 
against  the  secret  alarms  of  conscience.'  It 
were  too  much  to  expect  him  to  pass  from  the 
gay  saloons  of  fashion  and  mammon  to  the 


190  HALF   TINTS. 

feet  of  the  altar,  c  there  to  pray  for  himself 
and  his  people,  there  to  avert  the  righteous 
anger,  there  to  deplore  the  wickedness  of  a 
world  he  has  just  applauded,  and  in  which 
he  has  taken  part,  and  there  to  attend  upon 
the  holy  mysteries  with  that  silence  of  the 
senses,  that  profound  recollection,  that  reli- 
gious terror,  that  majestic  gravity,  and  that 
calmness  of  heart  and  mind  which  are  neces- 
sary in  the  spiritual  employment  of  the  min- 
istry.' 

His  discourses  are  essays  to  gratify  taste, 
adorned  by  allusions  to  pictures  and  orna- 
ments and  usages,  which  his  hearers  are  just 
now  enjoying ;  or  arguments  to  qualify  and 
ennoble  worldliness,  which  possesses  and  in- 
vests them ;  or  rhapsodies  to  solace  their  indif- 
ference to  uncertainties  and  perils,  which  their 
busy  lives  of  idleness  or  occupation  give  them 
no  time  to  contemplate.  Once  a  year  the 
golden  rule  is  dwelt  upon,  to  harmonize  and 
conciliate  commercial  niceties.  Refinement 
and  speciousness  may  display  themselves  upon 


POOR   SOTJLS.  191 

so  sober  a  generality.  If  not  a  vague  abstrac- 
tion, it  may  be  only  relative  in  its  application 
to  life,  as  honesty  in  the  common  sense  is  not 
integrity.  Honor  is  the  practicable  and  neces- 
sary rule.  The  speculator  may  have  it,  and 
trade  by  it,  and  reap  advantages  from  it, 
even  if  his  ingenuous  friend  be  ruined  by 
his  scheme.  Thief  he  may  morally  be,  and 
a  beggar  his  dupe,  but  the  contract  must  be 
fulfilled,  and  justice  indorse  it.  As  the  ethics 
to  govern  in  the  settlement  between  man  and 
his  Maker,  with  character  only  in  judgment, 
the  golden  rule  is  unquestionable,  but  not  in 
the  court  of  the  money-changers,  where  honor 
alone  must  gild  the  edges  of  promises.  With 
the  motives  of  the  heart  God  may  deal.  Man 
must  have  his  due. 

Love  and  mercy,  alternating,  are  the  usual 
and  encouraging  themes.  Conscience,  in  the 
very  crises  of  alarm,  has  its  terrors  converted 
into  blessings,  by  believing  consciousness  of 
crime  an  awakening  of  contrition.  The 
extremity  of  evil  appears  the  beginning  of 


192  HALF   TINTS. 

forgiveness.  A  life  wasted  by  vices  drops  to 
be  caught  in  the  arms  of  virtue,  and  winged 
hopes  are  given  it  by  mercy  it  has  only  out- 
raged. Man  is  abased  and  degraded  that  love 
and  mercy  may  exalt  him.  Evil  is  a  possible 
merit  if  good  is  to  come  of  it.  The  use  of 
man  to  employ  a  God.  Creature  and  Creator 
cooperating.  Self-love  and  the  attributes  of 
Deity  harmonized. 

He  is  a  pretty  preacher  for  young  people. 
His  manner  moves  them  like  the  bursting 
spring.  His  similes  are  of  buds  and  blossoms 
and  fresh  verdure.  His  soft  words  and  gentle 
gestures  winnow  fragrance.  He  expands  a 
flower  in  advancing  to  his  climax.  His  bloom- 
ing virtues  inspire  goodness,  as  modest  Pic- 
ciola  enforced  wisdom.  His  soft  cambric  a 
moment  obscures  his  eyes,  as  the  light  snow 
sometimes  conceals  the  violet;  but  they  get 
new  sweetness  from  tears,  as  increased  fra- 
grance results  from  bruising.  Young  maidens, 
blooming  with  innocence  and  beauty,  and  lus- 
trous with  love  of  every  thing  lovable,  feel  a 


POOR   SOULS.  193 

flush  unmoved  before  by  coarser  monitors,  and 
aspire  afresh  to  beatitudes  just  ready  for  them. 
The  beautiful  world,  never  so  beautiful  as 
painted  by  the  beautiful  preacher,  dissolves 
in  contemplation,  and  paradise  opens  and  sur- 
rounds them  and  all — the  dear  divine  in  the 
very  midst,  as  Beatrice  appeared  in  the  midst 
of  the  great  snow-white  rose,  transfixing  her 
illustrious  lover. 

His  accuracy  and  variety  of  taste  make 
him  a  connoisseur  in  every  thing  pertaining  to 
colors  and  fabrics.  At  home  everywhere 
where  there,  is  elegance,  contrasts  and  har- 
monies have  trained  him  to  refinement  of 
observation,  and  he  is  at  once  the  artist  and 
arbiter  in  perplexity.  As  a  relaxation  from 
labor,  and  to  gather  resources  for  the  enter- 
tainment and  instruction  of  his  people,  he  has 
travelled  the  Old  "World,  and  seen  edifices  and 
pictures  and  costumes,  and  his  perception  of 
effects  is  acute  and  unerring.  His  indorse- 
ment of  the  style  of  a  house,  or  the  beauty  of 
a  landscape,  or  the  trimming  of  a  gown3  is 


194  HAJ.F   TINTS. 

assurance  of  grandeur  or  value  or  tastefulness. 
His  ethics  in  the  pulpit  and  sesthetics  in  the 
drawing-room  are  alike  acceptable  and  infal- 
lible. His  fine  sense  of  fitness  was  illustrated 
in  the  choice  of  a  text  for  his  trial  sermon :  In 
my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions.  His 
novel  treatment  delighted  the  cultivated  pew- 
owners,  and  he  was  chosen  at  once,  leaving 
the  little  matter  of  salary  for  himself  to  deter- 
mine. Orthodox,  by  the  severest  test,  as  far 
as  he  went,  his  sense  of  architecture  and  appor- 
tionment was  refreshing.  The  travelled  portion 
of  his  audience  were  reminded,  by  the  exterior 
he  drew,  of  every  renowned  structure  they  had 
seen,  and  the  more  exclusive  were  delighted 
by  his  allotments.  Delicate  he  was,  and  dis- 
criminating, to  the  limit  of  refinement,  but  his 
standard  of  excellence  was  not  so  obscure  as 
not  to  be  sufficiently  obvious.  Degrees  of 
happiness  were  determined  by  development, 
and  that  was  easy  of  interpretation.  Bliss 
they  had  understood  before  to  be  relative.  En- 
joyment, as  a  rule,  is  measured  by  capacity. 


POOR   SOULS.  195 

Incongruity  would  mar  the  pleasure  even  of 
heaven.  Birds  of  the  same  plumage  have  the 
same  song,  and  would  lose  their  beauty  and 
melody  by  ill  assortment.  If  on  earth  division 
is  difficult  and  temporary,  in  heaven  it  must 
be  inevitable  and  eternal.  Beatitude  would 
be  qualified  if  not  immutable.  Happiness 
above  must  have  been  defined  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world,  as  continual  jostling  would 
unsettle  it.  If  poor  bodies,  in  faded  robes, 
avoid  their  betters  here,  arbitrary  mixture 
hereafter  would  be  oppression.  The  theory 
of  fitness  and  likes  must  solve  eternal  justice 
and  harmony.  Then  the  appointments  of  the 
preacher  were  as  tasteful  as  his  apportionment. 
Every  mansion  was  differently  adorned,  and 
earthly  upholstery  was  shamed  by  his  supernal 
fancy.  The  mistresses  of  mansions  received 
new  views  of  furnishing  and  ornamentation ; 
at  the  same  time  they  were  delighted  that 
in  so  many  things  their  taste  was  indorsed. 
In  some  details  he  seemed  even  to  describe 
their  own  super-terrestrial  habitations.  Passing 


196  HALF   TINTS. 

with  his  imagination  from  one  blissful  com- 
partment to  another,  they  seemed  at  home  in 
their  own  parlors  and  drawing-rooms.  Their 
own  gossamer  lace  curtains,  imported  by  Stew- 
art, the  breezes  of  paradise  fluttered  in  their 
faces ;  and  their  own  beautiful  velvets  caressed 
their  footsteps  over  coverings,  not  made  by 
hands,  eternal. 

In  society  he  is  indispensable  and  charm- 
ing, and  always  at  ease  where  angels  are 
sometimes  constrained.  He  pervades  and 
tones  the  atmosphere  like  a  perfume.  His 
presence  harmonizes  discords  and  compounds 
incompatibles.  He  contributes  of  his  graces 
and  borrows  of  its  splendors.  The  gleanings 
of  the  week  are  a  resource  for  Sunday.  Like 
a  fish,  he  gathers  food  from  the  living  surface ; 
like  a  drooping  flower,  he  revives  in  the  sun- 
shine ;  like  a  wasting  soil,  he  lies  fallow  for 
refreshment.  Yelvet  and  damask  soothe  from 
his  brain  its  fever.  His  hand,  wearied  by 
composition,  rests  itself  by  dalliance.  His 
mind  is  relieved  of  weighty  reflection  by 


POOR    SOULS.  197 

social  philosophy.  The  long  mornings  are 
shortened  by  confidences.  His  ear  an  un- 
questioned receptacle,  he  knows  more  of  the 
mysteries  of  a  household  than  the  householder. 
Receiving  of  the  gushing  tenderness  of  the 
lambs  of  his  flock,  he  unconsciously  leads 
them  into  green  pastures.  He  composes  their 
ambitions  or  jealousies  or  fears,  and  writes 
them  substantially  his  followers.  They  are 
bound  by  ties  of  sacredness,  and  his  honor  is 
at  once  their  stay  and  sacrament.  He  is 
indeed  the  good  shepherd,  with  the  indis- 
pensable crook  and  oil,  and  his  protection 
and  consolation  are  the  green  thymy  nooks 
of  security  and  promise. 

His  relations  with  society  are  closer  than 
the  physician's,  and  his  services  more  solemn 
and  responsible.  "With  the  poor  body,  for  a 
few  days  or  years,  the  former  has  to  deal, 
before  following  it  to  the  grave;  the  latter 
has  charge  of  the  imperishable,  which  he  must 
meet  in  judgment,  and  answer  for.  Every 
taint  upon  it  will  appear  distinctly  in  the 


198  HALF   TINTS. 

luminous  light  of  the  great  day,  and  every  one 
he  has  given  it  will  glare  upon  him.  If  he 
has  soothed  the  conscience  to  sleep  by  noxious 
sympathy  or  advice,  it  will  pronounce  against 
him  in  its  terrible  awakening.  If  he  has 
stimulated  any  corrupting  desire,  in  hunger 
or  remorse  it  will  forever  haunt  him.  If  he 
has  concealed  any  wholesome  truth,  it  will 
flash  upon  him  retributively  at  the  great  un- 
covering. If  he  has  encouraged  a  lie,  its 
endless  effects  will  discover  themselves  in  con- 
demnation. If  he  has  pandered  to  the  verge 
of  hypocrisy — invented  philosophies  to  flatter 
worldliness — confused  worship  with  ceremony 
— courted  power  without  suggesting  respon- 
sibility— helped  to  degrade  integrity  to  the 
standard  of  commercial  honor — exalted  money 
without  regard  to  the  means  which  obtained 
it — encouraged  wine  and  denounced  drunken- 
ness— extolled  prodigality  and  deplored  bank- 
ruptcy— admired  costly  raiment  and  bewailed 
demoralization — cautioned  youth,  with  only 
manhood,  against  marriage,  and  warned  him 


POOR   SOULS.  199 

of  the  strange  woman — counselled  with  ambi- 
tious mothers,  and  inveighed  against  slander — 
if  all  or  any  of  these  things  he  has  done,  he 
has  debauched  his  holy  office,  and  the  mean- 
est man  or  woman  he  has  helped  to  ruin, 
will  forever — happy  or  wretched — in  sorrow 
or  anger — lament  that  he  ever  existed. 


XIV. 

AND    SO    FORTH. 


XIY. 

AND    SO    FORTH. 

CKEATTJKE-COMFORTS,  Jack,  more  than  are 
wholesome,  are  the  devil.  At  least,  they  are 
the  lap  of  Delilah.  They  emasculate  and 
smother.  Manliness,  the  thing  every  man 
should  stand  for,  grows  without  them.  Strong 
roots  are  made  by  strong  winds.  Careful  cul- 
ture and  supports  give  symmetry  to  the  shrub 
in  the  conservatory,  but  the  oak  of  commerce 
grows  alone,  amid  storms.  To  the  rude  soil  and 
the  tempest  it  owes  its  texture,  and  it  will  bear 
the  tests  of  the  seas.  You  have  seen  how  the 
branches  of  trees  by  the  coast  or  on  the  moun- 
tain are  sometimes  forced  by  the  merciless 
wind  to  grow  one  way;  but  the  wilful  roots 


204:  HALF    TINTS. 

combine  defiantly  and  force  themselves  another. 
Character  is  so  much  resistance  and  endurance. 
You  remember  the  indifference  of  one  of  our 
schoolfellows  to  the  freezing  November  mud, 
and  what  a  hero  he  was  in  the  war.  Bare- 
footed generally,  he  was  always  at  the  head 
of  his  class.  His  pitiful  luncheon  at  noontime 
kept  him  but  a  minute  from  his  book.  He 
would  be  a  man,  and  even  poverty  helped 
him.  If  we  jeered,  it  was  cautiously.  His 
calm  persistency  shamed  us.  His  way  was 
his  own,  and  nothing  could  divert  him.  He 
advanced  as  if  fate  led  and  all  invisible  powers 
beckoned.  The  master  even,  stern  as  he  was, 
was  subordinate,  and  seemed  never  happy  but 
in  his  service.  There  is  nothing  more  accre- 
tive or  cumulative  than  manliness.  Every 
trial  gives  a  new  resource,  and  every  conquest 
a  new  power.  "With  each  achievement  accrues 
a  premium.  Growth  is  obvious,  and  calcula- 
ble, and  applicable.  Every  one,  boy  or  man, 
has  read  Robinson  Crusoe,  but  every  one  has 
not  thought  why  the  simple  narrative  is  so 


AND   SO   FOETH. 


205 


interesting.  To  the  curious  boy  it  is  the 
adventures  of  a  man  in  novel  and  trying  sit- 
uations ;  to  the  thoughtful  adult  it  is  the 
analysis  and  display  of  human  powers  and 
resources.  It  is  metaphysics  illustrated  in 
intellect  on  trial.  In  straits  we  are  to  see  if 
the  solitary  man  is  to  survive  a  hero.  With- 
out ordinary  helps,  he  is  to  supply  himself  by 
invention.  He  masters  extremity,  and  appears 
noble  in  achievement.  He  is  exalted  without 
applause  or  patronage.  Humanity  is  vindi- 
cated and  sublimated.  •  '  It  is  a  poor  and  dis- 
graceful thing,  not  to  be  able  to  reply,  with 
some  degree  of  certainty,  to  the  simple  ques- 
tions, What  will  you  be  ?  What  will  you  do  ? ' 
To  cut  the  cable  and  launch  away  from  con- 
ventional restraints  and  helps,  is  the  aspiration 
of  every  man  at  some  time  in  life.  His  indi- 
viduality feels  fettered  and  shorn.  Before  he 
consents  to  surrender  and  subordination,  he 
aspires  to  be  tried  by  trusts,  and  perils,  and 
calamities.  The  natural  man  is  radical,  and 
is  reluctant  to  believe  his  way  not  the  best. 


206  HALF   TINTS. 

He  would  show  it,  and  make  others  walk  in 
it.  Quitting  the  belief  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  him  more  than  appears,  is  the  first 
death.  With  it  is  interred  his  genius.  A 
record  of  the  solemn  entombment  is  made  in 
all  the  waste  places  it  leaves.  The  coldest 
man  who  has  read  Alton  Locke  has  felt  a 
certain  kinship  to  the  hero.  If  he  despised 
his  theories,  his  memory  was  illumined  by 
the  lurid  light  of  his  enthusiasms.  Mourn- 
fully were  reanimated  the  aspirations  which 
spent  themselves  upon  restraints  which  at 
one  time  encaged  him.  True  manhood  is 
shy  of  conventionality  and  patronage.  It  is 
self-asserting,  and  is  rarely  arm-in-arm,  but 
for  recreation.  It  gives  and  takes  of  its  own 
will.  It  husbands  by  determining  without 
counsel.  Its  reserve  conciliates  what  it  may 
appropriate.  The  average  it  can  drop  to  when 
not  avoidable,  and  as  readily  rise  out  of  when 
not  indispensable.  It  is  democratic,  essen- 
tially. It  requires  and  permits,  alike.  While 
it  chooses,  it  gives  choice,  without  question. 


AND    SO   FORTH.  207 

Freedom  it  claims  and  allows,  an  immunity 
without  gyves.  A  receptacle,  it  can  wait 
to  receive,  and  would  not  obstruct  nor  be 
obstructed.  A  week  were  not  idle  if  it 
brought  something,  but  a  day  would  be 
wasted  if  employed  upon  nothings.  Its  free- 
dom is  its  strength,  which  modish  subserv- 
iency acknowledges  in  obeisance.  Its  facul- 
ties are  fitted  for  work  by  waiting  for  work 
worthy  of  them.  Friction  it  likes,  but  not 
machine  movement.  The  principles  it  would 
train  to  grooves  are  as  virginal  and  unpolished 
as  when  spoken  of  God.  True  pleasure  be- 
trays the  same  shyness  and  freedom.  It  is  not 
to  be  caught  and  kept  by  arbitrary  provision. 
Mansions,  curtained  by  clouds,  carpeted  by 
woven  sunbeams,  perfumed  by  essences  of 
every  thing  fragrant,  filled  by  loveliest  maid- 
ens on  earth,  could  not  lure  it  to  stay  forever. 
It  would  flutter  unbidden  into  the  terrestrial 
paradise,  and  fly  away  as  wilfully  into  an 
attic,  where  only  a  desolate  heart  awaited  it. 
While  its  angel-like  presence  in  the  brilliant 


208  HALF   TINTS. 

saloon  would  be  accepted  the  contribution  of 
a  natural  guest,  its  visitation  to  the  skyward 
chamber  would  be  a  gift  of  Heaven,  an  answer 
to  despairing  prayer,  a  compensation  for  all  the 
unnumbered  woes  of  a  solitary  human  soul. — 
Men  generally  are  as  indolent  as  they  can 
afford  to  be.  Unless  compelled,  they  do  little 
which  is  useful,  and  utility  is  the  crown  of 
labor.  Only  now  and  then  a  high  nature  is 
created  which  works  from  love,  and  is  content 
with  a  tithe  of  the  harvest.  Nine  parts  to 
mankind  is  a  generous  division,  and  only  a 
great  soul  will  spare  so  much.  To  such  it  is 
not  a  sacrifice ;  his  return  is  in  multiplied 
blessings.  Exemption  from  useful  labor  is  the 
ambition  or  boast  of  nearly  all.  Trifling  for 
selfish  ends  is  therefore  the  business  of  most 
of  those  who  can  confine  themselves  to  volun- 
tary effort.  They  are  perverted  by  a  misuse 
of  means.  They  rely  upon  the  adventitious, 
till  the  natural  intrinsic  resources  deny  them 
service.  They  go  out  of  themselves  for  pleas- 
ure, and  return  to  find  themselves  empty. 


AND   SO   FORTH.  209 

They  build  palaces,  and  exist  in  them  the 
victims  of  ceremony  and  servants.  They  buy 
books  to  adorn  libraries,  which  satirize  them. 
They  buy  pianos  as  ambitious  ornaments,  and 
patronize  the  opera.  They  educate  their 
daughters  expensively,  and  see  them  accept 
impertinence  and  imbecility  for  escorts  and 
husbands.  Their  sons  are  indulged  and  pam- 
pered, till  amusements  are  exhausted  and 
occupation  is  purchased,  to  keep  them  respect- 
able. *They  ride  in  carriages  so  conspicuously 
elegant  as  to  make  them  sacrifice  comfort  to 
propriety.  Their  horsfes  represent  so  much 
capital  that  the  weather  and  their  health  are 
consulted  before  using  them.  Their  acquaint- 
ances are  esteemed  for  ;the  rank  they  have 
and  give.  Their  houses  are  heated  by  fur- 
naces to  secure  a  uniform  temperature,  and 
day  and  night  they  inhale  a  baked  atmos- 
phere, and  wonder  at  disturbed  respiration. 
Pipes  conduct  cold  and  warm  water  into 
chambers  and  kitchen,  and  they  take  poison 
in  all  they  drink  and  eat,  and  are  surprised 


210  HALF   TINTS. 

by  palsy  and  the  increase  of  nervous  disorders. 
The  wine-cellar,  meant  to  be  a  depository  of 
luxuries,  becomes  a  resource  against  wasting 
vitality.  The  laugh  of  the  fields  and  the  streets 
is  reproduced  in  ghastly  caricature  behind  the 
vari-colored  goblets.  A  joke  upon  the  high 
price  of  bread  redeems  a  dullard,  and  the 
whole  table  from  dulness.  The  children  are 
cared  for  by  nurses,  and  their  natures  modified 
by  restraints  and  drugs,  till  feebleness  and 
pitiful  cries  identify  them.  The  doctor's  visits 
are  as  indispensable  as  the  baker's  or  hair- 
dresser's, and  the  household  eat  as  they  dose, 
by  prescription.  The  priest  drops  in  to  solace 
the  moments  between  drugging  and  dressing. 
Life  is  taken  up  by  the  endless  round  of  arti- 
ficialities and  their  effects,  till  the  struggles 
and  wants  of  the  million  they  deplore  compare 
with  them  as  blessings. — The  inspiration  of 
work  is  the  spirit  of  life.  Bread  for  the 
body,  earned  by  the  hardest,  is  ambrosia  for 
the  soul.  Sweet  for  the  sweat  it  costs,  it  is 
sweeter  for  the  promise  it  gives.  It  satisfies 


AND    SO   FORTH.  211 

the  appetite,  but  not  the  longing  insatiable. 
The  little  feast  is  but  a  foretaste  of  fruition. 
The  sickly  atmosphere  of  affluence,  tempered 
to  tender  throats  and  low  enunciation,  is  gath- 
ered from  cellars  bordered  by  sewers,  and 
would  choke  a  healthy  nature,  exhausted  and 
exhaustive  by  exertion.  The  great  lungs  of 
out-door  labor  inspire  the  upper  air  of  heaven, 
and  pant  for  inspirations  from  its  source. 
To-morrow,  on  the  way  with  the  sun,  will 
demand  a  full  day's  service,  which  to-day's 
fidelity  must  assure.  To-morrow  and  to-mor- 
row, and  then  the  day  supernal,  long  enough 
for  any  longing,  an  unending  harvest  and 
holiday. — Making  and  earning  money  are 
different.  Earning  it  is  a  reality ;  making  it 
a  fiction.  Money  makes  money ;  labor  earns 
it.  Bonds,  proverbially,  like  infants,  do  best 
by  sleeping;  labor  must  be  wide  awake,  and 
faithful.  A  dollar,  for  ten  hours  in  the  sun, 
is  precious ;  a  dollar,  got  in  the  dark,  which 
cannot  be  accounted  for,  is  worse  than  want. 
Knotted  hands  tell  of  the  one ;  nimbleness 


212  HALF   TINTS. 

or  nothing  tells  of  the  other. — We  exalt  and 
reverence  the  poet ;  but  a  machine  built  from 
the  ore  of  the  mountain  is  as  much  a  creation 
as  an  epic,  and  fills  the  imagination  of  the 
builder  with  poetic  glories.  "Who  sings  an 
immortal  song  may  be  jealous  of  the  fame 
of  him  who  trains  the  elements  to  pointing 
pins  and  sailing  steamships.  "Who  has  gone 
down,  down  among  the  machinery  of  the  Great 
Eastern,  and  not  felt  a  contempt  for  his  buy- 
ing and  selling  and  pleasuring  occupations? 
Transfixed  in  the  presence  of  tremendous 
power,  the  genius  which  discovered  and  tamed 
and  trained  it,  loomed  in  transfiguration,  and 
confused  his  memories  of  even  Niagara  and 
Yo-Semite.  The  mastery  of  the  engines  over 
the  powers  of  the  sea,  overcame  his  arithmetic, 
and  his  bonds  and  ledgers  burnt  in  the  blaze 
of  divinity.  The  slender  crank  which  rules 
the  waves,  appeared  to  his  feeble  sense  the 
fiat  of  Omnipotence. — Power  is  restful  and 
invisible.  It  slivers  the  oak,  and  the  splin- 
tered column  is  a  memorial.  The  fragrant 


AND    SO   FOKTH.  213 

wood  is  untainted  by  the  mighty  fluid,  and 
smells  not  of  experiment  or  spent  forces.  It 
rives  the  rock,  and  its  fissured  inscriptions 
Old  Mortality  may  never  deepen.  Granite  is 
blasted  by  gunpowder ;  millstones  are  quarried 
by  a  gentler  but  mightier  agent.  Wedges  of 
dry  wood  are  inserted,  and  water  poured  upon 
them.  Over  night  they  swell,  and  the  precious 
rocks  separate,  noiselessly  as.  death  treads,  free 
of  any  treacherous  seam,  and  night  and  day, 
for  years,  like  the  mills  of  God,  they  grind 
exceeding  fine.  Gray  wrought  silently  and 
patiently  for  a  thousand  days  upon  a  thousand 
words,  and  his  matchless  Elegy  will  be  the 
expression  of  tenderness  while  any  tongue  is 
left  to  utter  it,  and  will  remain  in  memory 
when  human  tongues  are  silent  and  superfluous. 
Goldsmith,  hungry  and  bailiff-hunted,  in  naked 
and  desolate  chambers,  nursed  through  all  the 
years  of  his  prime,  through  all  the  sacred 
watches  of  consciousness,  through  the  wasting 
agonies  of  waiting  and  depression,  through 
the  rare  and  rapturous  moments  of  exalta- 


HALF   TINTS. 

tion,  his  little  romance  of  humanity,  and 
would  not  let  it  go  till  bread,  remorseless 
bread,  demanded  it.  In  the  silent  womb  of 
profound  human  nature  it  was  nourished  by 
tears  and  shaped  by  aspirations,  and  its  birth 
was  an  epoch  in  life  and  literature.  The 
tawdry  in  book-making  has  ever  since  been 
cautious  of  flaunting  its  meretricious  arts,  and 
the  simple  Vicar  is  accepted  a  model  in  narra- 
tive, and  an  encouragement  to  the  pure  human- 
ity it  describes. — Simple  nature  is  strongest, 
as  simple  work  is  healthiest.  Whirled  in  every 
little  eddy,  it  would  be  weakened  or  wasted  by 
purposeless  motion,  and  would  forget  the  in- 
spiration of  currents.  It  would  be  fretted  by 
the  incidents  of  progress,  and  lose  conscious- 
ness of  destination.  "Will,  even,  is  perishable, 
if  not  in  exercise.  Purpose  alone  will  nour- 
ish and  exalt  it.  Amusements  give  it  but  a 
sickly  growth,  if  they  do  not  destroy  it.  Mere 
living  is  not  a  worthy  object  of  life.  True  life 
is  above  the  means  which  sustain  it.  Equa- 
nimity has  an  eye  to  results  beyond  the  mo- 


AND    SO   FORTH.  215 

ment.  Only  the  beasts  that  perish  are  content 
to  be  merely  fed.  Accessaries  are  not  the 
purpose  of  a  living  picture,  much  less  of  life. 
The  nervous  tread  of  a  true  man  means  more 
than  movement;  it  betrays  absorbment,  and 
looks  to  an  end  worth  attaining.  Idleness  has 
every  gait,  and  none  long.  Whim  changes  it. 
Nothing  to  do  is  the  worst  want  of  nature, 
and  the  most  exhausting.  It  tests  severely  the 
best  minds  and  morals.  Ennui  is  weariness 
which  has  nothing  to  show.  The  tired  hod- 
man counts  the  courses  in  the  wall.  Languor 
presses  its  nose  against  the  pane,  and  dreamily 
questions  the  vitality  it  muses  on  and  envies. 
Earned  leisure  is  most  relished.  Pure  joy  is 
a  costly  article.  Diamonds  are  worn  outside ; 
jewels  more  brilliant  beam  within.  A  little 
time  for  pleasure  is  precious ;  time  for  nothing 
else  is  burdensome.  Accessaries  contribute  to 
happiness,  but  do  not  create  it.  The  good 
goddess  is  jealous,  and  shy  of  rivals.  She  is 
reluctant  to  obtrude  where  gold  and  silver 
images  are  set  up  and  worshipped  in  her 


216  HALF   TINTS. 

stead.  Her  nature  and  movements  are  free, 
her  robes  flowing,  and  she  requires  room,  and 
a  generous  welcome. — Job,  by  virtue  of  his 
celibacy,  is  confined  to  no  social  set,  and  his 
opportunities  for  observation  sometimes  make 
him  an  authority.  In  one  night  he  met  three 
companies,  made  up  of  as  many  grades,  as 
they  are  called,  of  society.  The  first  was  com- 
posed of  persons  who  begin  their  labors  with 
the  sun,  and  seven  o'clock  was  the  early  hour 
of  meeting.  The  ladies  were  cheerful  in  sim- 
plicity and  health  and  plain  dresses,  and  plain 
cake  and  walnuts  were  the  refreshments.  The 
second  was  gathered  from  a  class  of  greater 
pretensions  and  privileges,  and  met  at  the 
more  respectable  hour  of  nine.  The  ladies 
and  gentlemen  were  more  elaborately  dressed, 
but,  by  constraint  and  anxiety  of  manner,  be- 
trayed uneasiness  of  position.  The  wine  was 
tasted  and  discussed  in  a  way  which  betrayed 
that  it  was  not  an  accustomed  beverage.  The 
third  assemblage  was  of  the  cream  of  the 
town,  and  was  arriving  and  departing  in  state 


AND   SO   FOKTH.  217 

carriages  all  the  time  from  ten  till  early  morn- 
ing. The  ladies'  dresses  were  so  marvellous 
in  novelty  and  texture  and  brilliancy,  as  to 
engross  attention,  and  make  the  poor  bodies  in 
them  pitiable.  The  costly  refreshments  were 
served  by  imported  servants,  undistinguish- 
able  from  guests  in  dress,  manners,  or  lan- 
guage. Job  is  a  ready  and  adaptable  fellow, 
and  enjoyed  each ;  but  the  first,  he  says,  over 
the  plate  of  walnuts  and  gingerbread,  incom- 
parably most. — Simple,  open  natures,  the  light 
streams  through.  They  are  known  and  read 
of  all  men.  They  are  individual,  and  never 
mistaken.  They  stand  for  ideas,  and  facts, 
and  deeds.  Rectitude  identifies  them ;  '  cele- 
brated not  by  cries  of  joy,  but  by  serenity, 
which  is  joy  fixed  or  habitual.'  The  extrinsic 
is  their  foreground ;  the  inherent  their  per- 
spective, illimitable.  Trial  quickens  and  re- 
fines them.  Wants  supply  and  pangs  console 
them.  Calamities  become  resources,  treasures 
which  do  not  waste,  entailed  for  precious  uses, 

perpetuated  in  goodness,  or  fame,  or  glory. 
10 


218  HALF   TINTS. 

A  poor  mother,  whom  the  care  of  an  afflicted 
child  has  hurried  to  the  grave,  is  crowned  for 
her  virtues  where  there  is  no  suffering.  Suf- 
fering little  Charlotte  Bronte,  on  her  knee,  by 
the  firelight,  in  the  cold  parsonage,  in  painful 
characters,  wrote  herself  into  immortal  narra- 
tive. Through  all  the  rapture  and  agony  of 
De  Quincey's  sublime  and  terrible  Confes- 
sions, is  heard  the  wail  and  cough  of  poor 
Ann.  Milton,  in  the  solitude  of  mortal  dark- 
ness, with  an  eye  strong  enough  to  pierce  the 
sun  and  rend  the  veil,  saw  the  invisible  and 
eternal,  and  painted  them  in  shadows  and 
glories  unfading  and  immortal. 


*, 

« 

* 


XV. 

OUT     OF    THE    WINDOW. 


. 


XY. 

OUT    OF    THE    WINDOW. 

A  GEEAT  city  has  a  certain  look  of  repose, 
but  it  is  the  repose  of  power.  A  million  of 
people  so  crowded  together  as  to  be  waked  by 
the  report  of  a  columbiad,  must  of  necessity 
be  self-possessed,  occupied,  and  in  earnest. 
A  hundred  hands  are  in  waiting  for  the  con- 
tents of  a  pocket.  Every  one  must  ever  be 
busy  and  on  his  guard  or  he  will  starve  or 
be  robbed.  To  look  at  the  million-headed 
thing,  you  would  think  it  abstracted  or  indif- 
ferent ;  but  such  a  convolution  of  sensations 
and  sensibilities — want,  plethora,  jealousy, 
pride,  ambition,  hatred,  Conscious  crime,  de- 
spair—is a  congeries  of  activities  the  slightest 


222  HALF   TINTS. 

accident  may  agitate  into  a  tumult.  Its  face 
may  dimple  at  an  inharmonious  combination 
of  colors  in  a  lady's  attire,  and  a  moment 
afterward  it  will  see  the  grotesquest  of  all 
things  without  a  smile.  At  one  time  it  will 
risk  its  security  to  avenge  a  slight,  at  another 
endure  oppression  without  a  whimper.  A 
man  dead  in  the  street  may  not  much  more 
apparently  attract  its  attention  than  a  dead 
omnibus-horse.  One  person  stopping  to  ask 
after  the  unfortunate  man  would  excuse 
another  to  do  the  same,  and  the  street  would 
be  blocked.  His  curiosity,  if  he  has  any,  must 
be  stayed  till  he  gets  the  evening  paper  with 
his  tea.  Nevertheless,  every  novelty  in  every 
shop  window  is  observed,  and  an  aged  woman 
or  careless  child  cannot  cross  the  dangerous 
street  without  fastening  anxiously  every  eye. 
Let  the  prodigious  mass  alone,  and  it  will 
walk  round  you ;  get  in  its  way,  and  it  will 
close  upon  you  forever. 

In  times  of  civil  distress  and  extremity  it 
most  conspicuously  displays  its  shrewdness  and 


OUT   OF   THE   WINDOW.  223 

power.  When  the  nation  is  stirred,  the  material 
long  buried  and  unrecognized  works  upward. 
The  burdens  put  upon  it  make  it  active,  ner- 
vous, and  irrepressible.  A  victory  or  a  defeat 
immediately  employs  all  hands  making  figures. 
The  blunder  of  an  incompetent  commander, 
and  the  tempest  which  scatters  a  fleet,  are 
shrewdly  and  sagaciously  discounted.  The 
dealers  in  old  clothes,  decaying  vegetables, 
poisoned  drinks,  and  the  precious  metals,  have 
profound  theories,  which  make  the  schemes  of 
the  finance  minister  tremble  and  reel.  The 
Sixth  Ward  and  Wall  Street  agree,  without 
consultation.  They  see  in  the  diversion  of 
vast  numbers  of  able-bodied  men  into  a  new 
and  wasting  occupation,  that  the  proportion 
between  those  who  produce  and  those  who  con- 
sume must  be  violently  affected.  They  know 
humanity,  its  necessities,  and  its  instincts,  and 
scent  speculation  insensibly.  They  accept  in- 
flation as  the  inevitable  compensation.  They 
know  that  with  the  government  for  customer, 
necessitated  to  buy  all  the  country's  surplus, 


224  HALF   TINTS. 

all  they  have  to  do  is  to  mark  every  thing  up, 
and  let  the  certain  results  follow.  They  know 
that  man,  so  essentially  by  taste,  habit,  and 
necessity,  a  getting  animal,  will  not  neglect 
so  tempting  an  opportunity  to  combine  against 
his  only  customer.  A  falling  stone  goes  not 
more  directly  toward  the  centre  of  the  earth 
than  the  instinct  of  a  trading  cit  goes  to  the 
marrow  of  a  money  question. 

The  weakness  and  power  of  society  are 
exhibited  in  averages.  It  reposes  in  them, 
and  is  developed  by  them.  Its  classifications, 
apparently  voluntary,  are  remorseless.  All 
elements  must  come  under  control,  and  be 
solved.  What  is  not  fit  for  a  square  hole, 
must  go  into  a  round.  Men  are  classified  as 
trees,  and  individuals  are  apparently  as  alike 
as  the  leaves.  Heads  are  so  much  on  a  level, 
that  one  above  the  rest  is  an  obstruction.  If 
a  quiet  blow  will  reduce  it,  down  it  goes. 
If  it  will  not  down,  it  is  out  of  its  grade,  and 
must  go  into  a  higher.  c  To  live  alone,  is  the 
chastisement  of  whoever  will  raise  himself  too 


OUT   OF   THE   WINDOW.  225 

high.'  What  one  knows,  all  are  understood 
to  know.  Weaknesses  and  interests  are  ac- 
commodated. ~No  one  has  great  advantages 
over  another.  "What  affects  one,  affects  all. 
Protection  to  the  individual  is  protection  to 
the  class.  Plans  -he  could  not  originate  are 
ready  made.  The  flow  of  his  life  is  in  a  com- 
mon channel.  The  full  volume  and  steady 
current  satisfy  his  efforts,  and  in  the  chances 
of  movement  float  him  momentarily  to  the 
top.  Happy  or  wretched,  he  can  touch  a 
thousand  like  him.  The  best  and  worst  of 
every  thing  are  at  hand,  and  contiguous.  The 
virtues  and  vices  are  organized,  and  recruit- 
ing. The  great  town  is  the  greatest,  and  he 
is  a  part  of  it.  Helping  to  make  it,  he  does 
something,  and  will  not  have  lived  in  vain. 
He  does  not  see  how,  but  he  would  be  missed. 
He  expands  with  the  bigness  about  him.  The 
great  assemblage  makes  him  decorous.  His 
conduct  disgraces  or  dignifies  it.  He  dresses 
to  be  always  presentable  to  it.  It  keeps  a 

guard  over  him  while  he  sleeps  and  knows  his 

10* 


226  HALF   TINTS. 

footsteps  when  awake.  The  streets  are  lit  for 
him.  The  parks  are  planted  for  him.  The 
harbor  is  broader  for  his  eye.  An  opera  he 
may  hear  at  the  Academy  for  a  guinea,  or  at 
the  cathedral  for  a  shilling.  Church  priv- 
ileges are  purchasable  or  acceptable,  at  his 
will.  The  cemetery,  where  they  bury  in 
tombs  and  trenches,  is  one  of  his  possessions. 
All  are  his  as  much  as  anybody's,  and  his 
without  exciting  anybody's  envy  or  cupidity. 
Each  illustrates  the  fable  of  the  swimming 
apples,  and  applies  it  to  the  rest.  The  little 
instincts  become  so  marvellously  acute,  that 
they  assume  the  dignity  of  faculties.  The 
faculties  are  so  habitually  in  use,  that  they 
have  the  look  of  instincts.  In  the  club,  dul- 
ness  becomes  respectable.  In  the  town  meet- 
ing, the  best  heads  are  in  the  audience.  In 
the  exchange,  audacity  is  wisdom.  Wisdom 
itself  is  too  dumb  for  an  oracle.  The  street 
a  man  lives  in  fixes  his  social  status.  A  man, 
good  or  great  as  he  may  be,  is  not  great  or 
good  enough  to  make  his  rank.  A  house  on 


OUT   OF   THE   WINDOW.  227 

the  avenue,  a  box  at  the  opera,  a  pew  in 
the  church,  an  establishment  for  the  park,  are 
indices  not  to  be  gainsayed.  Neither  intel- 
ligence, nor  taste,  nor  virtue,  is  requisite  to 
possess  them.  Money,  attainable  by  the  worst 
as  well  as  by  the  best,  and  by  the  worst  means, 
secures  them.  Neither  intellect  nor  purity  is 
permitted  advantages.  Distinctions  of  God 
were  obstructions  to  men.  The  standard  is 
determined  by  possibility.  It  is  the  highest 
attainable  by  the  majority.  The  universal  hat 
is  lifted  in  condescension  and  recognition. 

The  average  wisdom  controls  society.  Pres- 
idents and  assemblies  and  kings  are  its  crea- 
tures, or  exist  by  its  sufferance.  It  is  the 
gauge  of  civilization.  It  may  appear  too  slow 
to  the  seer,  or  too  fast  for  the  philosopher,  but 
the  prescience  of  the  one  and  timidity  of  the 
other  are  not  often  consulted.  It  gives  a 
sympathizing  ear  to  the  fervid  thoughts  of 
reformers  and  enthusiasts,  cooling  and  util- 
izing them  by  diffusion.  It  takes  from  the 
wearied  eye  and  nerve-shaken  hand  of  the 


228  HALF   TINTS. 

inventor  his  invention,  and  puts  it  to  work  in 
the  fields  and  seas.  It  may  have  its  whimsi- 
calities, but  they  are  the  recreations  and  gam- 
bols of  power.  So  generally  and  intensely 
preoccupied  and  absorbed  by  its  occupations, 
it  is  but  natural  that  sometimes  a  little  child 
should  lead  it.  Engaged  in  emancipating 
races,  it  finds  time  to  fill  the  shop-windows  with 
caricatures  of  the  grotesque  side  of  the  tre- 
mendous process.  The  few,  consciously  strong 
or  presumptuous,  who  have  been  helped  up- 
ward by  its  generosity,  may  fret  that  it  will 
not  always  continue  to  aid  and  elevate  them. 
The  roominess  and  freedom  above  are  in  such 
contrast  with  the  jostling  and  competition 
below,  that  they  cry  out  for  prerogatives. 
Democracy  is  good  while  its  uses  can  be 
turned  to  account,  but  when  independence  of 
it  is  sought  and  fails,  it  is  complained  of  as 
agrarian.  Its  favoritism  is  fickle  and  quali- 
fied. It  delights  to  scatter  its  gifts,  and  limit 
their  tenure  to  subordination.  Individuals 
may  be  its  favorites  until  they  assume  to  be, 


OUT   OF    THE    WINDOW.  229 

when  they  are  not.  The  rights  it  would 
secure  to  each  are  not  incompatible  with  the 
rights  of  any.  It  aims  to  elevate  every  citi- 
zen ;  not  so  much  for  personal  benefit  as  for 
public  use.  It  designs  opportunity  to  all, 
rather  than  advantages -to  any.  It  means  that 
every  man  shall  have  a  fair  chance  to  make 
his  own  way.  Scholarship  is  not  the  end; 
but  peaceful  and  enlightened  society,  gov- 
erned by  humane  and  beneficent  laws. 

Demonstrations  which  sometimes  appear 
revolutionary  and  suicidal,  prove  -but  detec- 
tive police  movements  for  self-preservation. 
Masses  sometimes  seem  infatuated  by  dan- 
gerous demagogues  until  thoroughly  made 
acquainted  with  their  designs,  when  the  mis- 
chief is  exposed,  and  the  mischief-makers  are 
overwhelmed.  The  ready  attention  given  to 
ambitious  factionists  beguiles  them  to  ruin. 
If  the  public  ear  can  be  so  easily  had,  why 
not  its  strong  right  hand,  with  a  dagger  in  it  2 
Thousands  are  got  to  subscribe  a  compact  of 
defiance  of  authority,  and  the  leaders  in  the 


230  HALF   TINTS. 

scheme  of  treason  are  confident  of  its  suc- 
cess. The  roll  of  names  attains  an  immeas- 
urable length,  and  the  time  for  indiscrimi- 
nate slaughter  of  loyalty  arrives.  The  signal 
agreed  upon  and  perfectly  understood  is  given, 
when  the  whole  devilish  plot  appears  a  failure 
to  its  inventors.  Those  enrolled  to  participate 
in  the  parricidal  crime,  expose  and  identify 
their  leaders,  join  in  exultation  at  their  dis- 
grace and  ruin,  and  a  purer  patriotism  is 
established.  Desperate  disorganizers  misin- 
terpret public  impatience.  Their  own  hearts 
corrupted,  and  bent  upon  disruption  and  rev- 
olution, they  assume  as  much  perfidy  and 
baseness  in  those  who  listen  to  and  seem  to 
sympathize  with  them.  Popular  discontent 
cannot  easily  be  organized  into  revolt.  An 
attempt  to  organize  it,  while  a  particle  of 
gratitude  or  hope  remains,  will  only  quicken 
a  remembrance  of  benefits,  and  warm  the 
common  heart  to  a  more  fervid  attachment. 
Once  put  upon  its  guard,  no  temptation  can 
seduce  it. 


OUT   OF   THE   WINDOW.  231 

In  the  natural  tendency  of  society  to 
average  itself  is  manifested  its  security  and 
promise.  It  is  the  common  sense  and  the 
common  law  of  life.  It  governs  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  every  man.  It  is  the  spirit  of 
democracy.  American  civilization  is  its  best 
fruit.  There  the  rulers  are  citizens,  and  every 
citizen  is  a  possible  ruler.  It  puts  a  hope  into 
every  heart,  and  helps  it  to  pray  as  well  as  to 
work.  It  fosters  ideas  of  progression,  which 
grow  into  system,  and  methodize  thought  and 
exertion.  It  makes  tests  for  creeds  and  plat- 
forms, and  widens  their  scope  and  purpose  to 
a  generous  breadth  and  humanity.  Sects 
and  parties  must  consult  it,  or  fall  apart.  In 
its  providence,  it  cares  for  all,  the  little  and 
the  great,  the  strong  and  the  feeble.  Its 
modes  may  appear  levelling  processes,  but 
the  valleys  of  shadow  are  lifted  up.  The 
sun,  if  it  does  not  glitter  upon  a  promon- 
tory, warms  the  plain  to  produce  a  generous 
harvest.  If  genius  be  a  little  crippled  in  its 
wing,  it  is  to  teach  it  a  steadier  flight.  If 


232  HALF   TINTS. 

the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  the  everlasting 
hills  be  a  little  obscured  by  cultivation,  the 
royal  vintage  will  make  glad  the  heart  of 
man. 


THE  END. 


Half  tints. 


832765 


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